


Exodus of Man: Hades' Chest

by HMaxMarius



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Battlestar Galactica - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23989657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HMaxMarius/pseuds/HMaxMarius
Summary: The media called them pirates.The Colonial Government ordered their eradication.The Colonial Fleet hunted them for decades.Then the Cylons came back.They call themselves the Last Colony of Man......and they have a plan!
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	1. Prolog

**Author's Note:**

> This story is heavily inspired by the works of Monbade, Wes Imlay and several others who have taken the idea that more than just the GALACTICA's fleet survived the Cylon Holocaust and run with it. I hope it honors them that some of their pen names are given to ships here.
> 
> This is the same story I previously posted on Fanfiction.net. I'm hoping new feedback will help me get unstuck. Remaining current chapters will be posted on Sundays until caught up.
> 
> _Due to inability for endnotes to be assigned to the first chapter instead of entire work. Original endnote is appended here. I sincerely apologize that this somewhat necessary information makes for a very long-winded pre-introduction to the story._
> 
> **Ship Classifications**
> 
> Due to there being only two known surviving ships during the series run and very limited information being available outside of that (Blood & Chrome), fandom has gone a number of different directions with ship classifications. For purposes of this story, classifications and roles for each vessel will be as follows:
> 
>  **Battlestar:** Battlestars are ships of the line. Capital ships intended to stand toe to toe with the enemy. They are hybrid battleship/carriers. Cannonically, Battlestar fighter compliments are shown to have little to no means of directly attacking opposing Capital ships, so they serve a purely defensive role for the fleet, keeping enemy raiders, which do have ship-killing offensive capability away from critical units. Battlestars are not capable of deep atmospheric/planetary landing operations.
> 
>  **Gunstar:** Gunstars are the equivalent of heavy cruisers or battlecruisers. They supplement the firepower of the Capital ships. Generally they have less armor and little or no fighter compliment and are not designed with the purpose of conducting combat flight operations.
> 
>  **Carrier:** As the name indicates, this is a pure-play combat fighter deployment platform. These have generally been phased out in favor of Battlestars by the Colonial Navy, though an effective carrier/gunstar fleet combination can fulfill the same role, albeit at a higher crew-to-tonnage ratio.
> 
>  **Firestar:** Firestars are the equivalent of Frigates or Destroyers. Their role is area denial to enemy light units, protecting the flanks and approaches to the line combat units and supplementing short range suppression fire.
> 
>  **Marinestar:** Marinestars are Battleship/Landingcraft hybrids. Their job is planetary assault and their primary weaponry is oriented for that purpose. Heavy anti-ship batteries are traded for ventral mounted KEWs capable of targeting meter size planetary targets from orbital range. Marinestars are the largest Colonial ships capable of planetary landing and take-off.
> 
> **Commentary:**
> 
> From all in canon appearances, the Colonial Navy seems to have preferred individual unit survivability over operational force survivability. They do not embrace the Quantity over Quality dynamic. Preferring one heavy, well-armored vessel over a larger number of less capable but still powerful substitutes. What's the German tanker's line about the Sherman... “Our tanks are better than 10 of yours, but you always have 11.” Of course, when you're dealing with an enemy that can turn out new, fully trained troops in hours, vs taking 18 years, well one can see valid arguments for their strategic mentality.
> 
>  **Red Line:** For purposes of this story, the 'Red Line' shall be the maximum safe distance that a ship can jump using standard FTL calculation tables. It is not a discrete location or border, it is the defined position at which the margin of error is too great to safely jump. Longer jumps are possible if more variables are taken into account but they require more time or processing power to calculate. This distance is mutable based on known variables such as detail available via existing maps and the speed and accuracy of stellar cartographic operations.

**Picon Battlefield**

**14 Days After the Attack**

For over a week, Floyd Woodright's team had been living in the wreckage of the Battlestar ZEUS' stern. Their shuttle docked to a ventral port nestled between the remains of the landing pod spars and the engine block.

The forward third of the ship had been sheared off by an explosion in the fore-central magazine when the CNP virus had shut down the ship's defenses allowing several nuclear missiles to strike the dorsal spine sequentially. The resulting damage had blown the forward half of the port flight-pod into scrap and blasted the starboard pod completely off the ship. 

In spite of this damage, the ZEUS was amazingly intact. All eight of her massive sublight thrusters were in top fleet condition. Her jump drive tested out as ready and her primary energizers just needed to be reset to provide power. This they had discovered during their first two days aboard after all the evacuations around the various battle sites were completed.

Unfortunately, the Cylons were returning to each battle site on a regular schedule and any attempt to power up the derelict warship would be detected long before it could be made ready to jump clear, resulting in the loss of not only the ship but of the volunteers preparing it for removal to Hades' Chest.

Hades' Chest. The infamous pirate base that it was claimed had preyed on the outer systems for nearly the entire time since the Cylon... well now First Cylon war and yet had never been found by the Colonial Fleet. There was a very good reason for that fact. For despite its size and its general appearance being that of a rather run of the mill asteroid, much of its interior had been hollowed out into docks, housing, hydroponic farms, animal pens and industrial areas. But Hades' Chest's real secret were the four jump engines that had been salvaged from Cylon baseship wrecks immediately after the war. With them installed, the asteroid would jump to a new location well away from any search zone the Colonial Fleet might sniff at.

Now, Hades' Chest was the last hope of the few Colonial survivors in the Helios and attendant star systems. From a population of upwards of fifty billion, the survivors on all twelve worlds numbered in the single-digit millions. Some hiding in underground shelters, others taking to their planet's wilds in a desperate attempt to evade the Cylon centurions and their recently revealed bioform counterparts.

They needed hope. They needed help. Most of all, they needed an escape.

And that is why Floyd's team had been living in suits in a derelict battlestar for the last nine days. In that time, they had manage to use the ZEUS' remaining thrusters to stabilize the wreck, slowly eliminating its tumble and yaw, leaving it with a slow roll on its longitudinal axis. Now they were just waiting for the fleet repair cradle MONBADE to jump in, snatch the wreck and jump it back to the base.

There, the ZEUS' mighty engines would be stripped and prepared for installation in a second asteroid ship that had been hollowed years before and outfitted as a fallback for the people of Hades' Chest in a system four light years away. A system that was nothing but scattered rocks that had long been considered and rejected for the establishment of mining colonies.

Even so, the survivors had to be careful as the Cylons were now actively patrolling every nearby system, searching for the hundreds of ships that had survived the attack by fleeing to deep space.

Glancing at the chronometer on the bulkhead, Floyd rolled out of his bunk on the shuttle. After taking a quick sponge bath and downing a ration pack, he slipped into his suit, checked the seals then set off through the airlock into the cold, ghostly silence of the ZEUS. Of a crew of nearly four thousand, the recovery team had saved barely eleven hundred. 

None of them were on his team. Not that they didn't want to be. In fact, to a man, they had all volunteered. But there was more important work for them to be doing, preparing for the ship to be brought to Hades, among other even more critical needs. So Floyd had a dozen ex and current fleet men and women to get the ship ready for her final jump.

Stepping into the ship's auxiliary control he glanced at the DRADIS display. One of the Gunstar wrecks still had power from its main energizer and while much of that ship had been destroyed, somehow its active DRADIS system was still pounding away. Thanks to that system, the ZEUS' remaining passive DRADIS sensor systems were able to give an amazingly clear picture of the debris field surrounding Picon.

Right on schedule, there was the flash of a Cylon raider jumping in to sweep through and scan the wrecks. Floyd found himself counting down as the homicidal machine wove its way through the detritus of its compatriots' handiwork. And with another flash, it was gone.

“Two hours. Mark.” Sue Clifford stated, pushing a button on one of the consoles to start a clock.

Picking up a handset from the plot table Floyd punched one of its buttons. At the far end of the cable, in the remains of the port flight-pod a light flashed on the console of a small Colonial craft. _“Raptor 2-1-7-3. Go for traffic.”_

“This is Woodright. Light is green, schedule is set. One hour fifty-nine minutes and counting.”

_“Raptor 2-1-7-3. The clock is running. Understood.”_

With that, the crewwoman in the back of the small Colonial attack craft reached out and unplugged the cable from her panel, tossing it out the open hatch. Already, as the hatch was being sealed, the pilot was maneuvering out of the wreckage.

Another flash on the DRADIS showed Floyd the departure of the raptor.

It felt like forever as the sweep-hand of the clock crept its way around the dial but in reality it was right at two minutes when an extremely bright flash washed out the DRADIS from close aboard. As the screens cleared Floyd could see that the MONBADE had already unlatched its gaping maw and was rapidly approaching from the ZEUS' stern even as the giant ship's thrusters worked to match the ZEUS' rotation. As the engine housing passed through the opening their rotations synchronized allowing docking cranes to begin extending toward the mortally wounded beast.

Now time seemed to be speeding up and crawling at the same time. Ponderous movements of gigantic equipment seeming to take far too long while the sweeping hand of the clock seemed to be moving far too quickly. Fifteen minutes to properly position the cradle relative to the ship. Forty minutes to latch on the various docking cranes to secure it. Ten minutes to run load queries and perform jump calculations with the new mass.

But ZEUS was not the only project occurring today. For while ZEUS' main power might have been off-line, that was not the case elsewhere in the debris field. Much like the gunstar with the jammed on DRADIS, numerous other heavily damaged ships still had power, and with the arrival of the MONBADE raptors raced to every one of them.

As the time counted down to fifteen minutes until the next Cylon patrol sweep, first one, then three, then a full dozen wrecks jumped out to coordinates provided by the raptor crews. Three battlestar hulks and three times that number of lesser support craft jumped away, each stuffed to the gills with salvaged weapons and munitions from the battlefield.

When the MONBADE jumped there was finally true silence amongst this graveyard of the Colonial fleet.

At one minute until the return of the Cylon patrol, a titanic explosion ripped apart the remains of the bow of the ZEUS as her full load of nuclear warheads was set off at once, shattering the remains of the nearby ships. The arriving raider having to dodge frantically before being slammed by a piece of debris and being forced to resurrect.

While there was only one cradle left and this time its mission had been the recovery of the ZEUS, similar raids conducted over several days at Virgon, Scorpia, Canceron, Libran and a dozen lesser locations had resulted in the recovery of engine blocks of twenty battlestars and nearly a hundred smaller craft.

While many of these warships were never to sail again, their beating hearts would continue to serve their people.

**Hades' Chest – Gamma Cyrannus System – Hart Belt**

**14 Days After Attack**

Jack Smythe stood in front of the monitors in the Hades' Chest central control room. At his shoulder stood Gandolf Uri, Admiral of the Tauron Home Guard Defense Fleet. His flagship, the RA, a flight 2 Jupiter class Battlestar was one of the few surviving warships remaining. With the first Cylon war era Gunstars HATHOR and ISIS and four thirty year old Firestar escort frigates, they were the core of what was known to be left of a combined system wide and planetary active defense fleet that numbered nearly a thousand ships.

Their survival being more luck than any particular level of skill that was not present in equal measure on any other ship, Colonial Fleet or Home Guard. Picon Fleet Command had gotten yet another sniff on the Hades' Chest, but with the Armistice Day fleet festivities approaching, they had handed off the followup to the Tauron Home Guard.

Thus Admiral Uri and his seven ship element found themselves cruising the Helios Gamma Oort Cloud. As per their usual modus, the Hades' Chest was far away from where she was being sought, but a small carrier ship with a wing of first war vipers was hanging around the search area with the intent to bait the searchers and keep them from sniffing the real trail.

The arrival of the radio traffic about the attack caught both groups unawares, but the rapidity of the Colonial Fleet's fall was stunning. By the time the RA and her escorts were ready to jump back it was clear that the battle was well and truly over and the Colonies had lost. Badly.

The Hades' Chest's carrier had come out of hiding and immediately offered to stand with the Admiral whatever decision he chose, but that if the disaster was as bad as it seemed then perhaps they might need a plan other than 'die valiantly'. 

And so, very shortly, the Admiral found himself utterly flabbergasted by the FTL arrival of the largest object he had ever seen jump.

Now he was in that behemoth's command center overseeing the third phase of the plan they had hammered out that day.

Phase one was the rescue of as many fleet personnel from the wrecked ships and disabled fighters as possible. The successful combing of the battlefields and wreckage having resulted in the recovery of almost a hundred thousand fleet personnel of various specialties and ratings. A corollary to phase one was to guide as many civilian ships and surviving warships as possible to the Hades' Chest where they would either be docked or sent on to a fallback location.

Phase two was the salvage of the battlefields onto recoverable wrecks and the preparations for their retrieval. Work that was now finished at one site and nearly so at all the others.

Phase three was now underway. The retrieval of the designated wrecks for salvage or reconstruction.

The FTL flash of arriving ships set off alarms in the command center that were quickly silenced as the teams aboard the not-quite derelicts checked in. Exuberant smiles were on everyone's faces as ship after expected ship was checked off the board, loud cheers breaking out as the MONBADE made its arrival.

For decades, the citizens of Hades' Chest had come to Cyrannus Gamma as a safe haven, mining the asteroids of the system, hollowing out some as fallback positions should anything happen to the Chest. Now that preparation was being put to use for completely different purposes. Already the Cylons had begun patrolling through the system, making it unsafe to keep all of these ships out in the open.

With the final arrival, tugs swarmed from the various rocks like angry hornets from a disturbed nest. Latching on to the nearest ship, they began maneuvering them down the bore-holes of the various hollowed out rocks. Even as MONBADE docked within the rock that was already known as Hades' Hope the last of this first group of warships were being secreted away in other rocks in the nearby field.

By the time the next Cylon patrol came through there was nothing to see but gravel and boulders.


	2. Chapter 1

**Haven**

**End of the Cylon War**

War requires men and women to be hard. To do things that polite society cannot embrace or condone. Often, after war is done, society would rather forget those things that had to be done and it fully expected those who had done them to do so as well. Many try and succeed. Many more wish they truly could, burying it in pain and rage and drink and song and again, pain. But there are some who recognize that who they are cannot fit in. Sometimes they openly acknowledge their failing, other times they fool themselves into thinking it is something else.

And occasionally, very rarely, there will be someone who through some combination of the above creates something new.

Johann Smythe smiled to himself as he backed his prospector ship into the borehole of the abandoned asteroid mine. Having checked out several only to find them to have been destroyed by either the Combined Fleets or by the Cylons, it was a pleasant surprise to find one of these pre-war mining sites intact.

From the moment he had mustered out of the Fleet he had been searching for one of these. As a dedicated Virgonese Royalist, he had no interest in bowing to any government located on a planet other than his home one. Unfortunately, the exigencies of war had forced the twelve worlds to combine into a single polity. One that he was convinced would be dominated by Caprica and Picon.

As such, he intended to create a place to live, out from underneath the domineering thumb of those self-righteous fools who had brought the Cylon menace down on them to begin with, funding them as combat droids for use against the other Colonies in their ever grasping thrust to rule all others.

Playing his ships lights through the empty borehole he noted the hundreds of year old metalwork framing the ancient dock. Haven had been mined out and abandoned centuries before the Cylon holocaust and only the existence of specific locations, times and orbital references in a several times great grandmother's diary had allowed him to find it.

He had what he needed, now it was time to gather his family. Gather his friends. Build something that would be beholden to no one else. He and those dear to him had been through hell. It was time to store away the horrors, lock them away in a strong box... a chest. Hades' own chest.

His smile grew bigger. Haven was in the records, which meant that with enough digging it could be found. But Hades' Chest. Now that had a ring to it.

Hades' Chest, a place on the fringes where men and women can still stand tall, not bowing to the political whims of others.

**Hades' Chest**

**Evening – Day of the Attack**

Putting away his father's journal, Jack shook his head. For forty years, his family, hell his people had embraced the idea that the rest of the Colonies thought of them as pirates. It was part of their cache. A core part of who they all were and it could not be further from the real truth.

What Hades' Chest was in reality was a colony that was subservient to none of the others. Every piece of equipment on the base was either properly purchased or legitimate salvage. In all the years of the base's existence there had been exactly 5 acknowledged acts of piracy performed by the residents. Four of those were of ships that they had bought, packed family and purchased supplies on and then 'disappeared' officially. The piracy ruse used to drop off the grid. The fifth, well sometimes hot-heads get the wrong idea in their heads and then they pay the price for their stupidity.

The Smythe family certainly held no brook with that, and there was never a repeat of the occurrence.

Currently, the docks were packed with numerous passenger ships, freighters and various other vessels. Raptors and FTL shuttles from the RA and her fleet were constantly arriving with survivors pulled from wreckage of destroyed and disabled ships.

A Colonial Marinestar, packed with evacuees from Aquaria was maneuvering to one of the last places to dock.

So many people. So many gone and yet so many still alive and needing what only he had. Someplace safe. But Hades' Chest was already nearing capacity.

There was no point in trying to hide from the other Colonials any more. Now they all needed to hide from the Cylons.

He looked at the latest list of Fleet crew rescued, then at the monitor where the Marinestar was docking.

“Fine, lets be pirates and go steal us some ships,” he muttered. Striding out of his office into the command center he was actually surprised to see Admiral Uri staring at the display monitors alongside a Colonial Fleet Commander.

“Admiral?” He asked.

“Ah Director Smythe, I'd like you to meet Commander Arianne Ryx, formerly of the Battlestar BELEROPHON”

Her smile was half predatory half awed at what his people had built. “Hell of a place you have here Director.”

“Welcome to Hades' Chest Commander. I've just been reviewing a bit of the facility's history hoping to glean some guidance from my father's journals.”

Ryx cocked a wry eyebrow. “Ways to get away with attacks against a superior force?”

“While I doubt you'd believe me just now, there has been only one actual act of piracy committed by residents of this facility and I can provide you with transcripts, audio and video of their trial and punishment for breach of Hades' Chest Law. What we have always considered ourselves is a 'self-governing, off the books colony'. As such we may even be the last functioning colony of man. Making it imperative that we now rise to the aid of our fellow men as our forefathers did in the last war.”

Ryx nodded. Jack could tell she was not going to let history go, but for now she needed him and what he had.

“Admiral Uri, I was actually coming out here to call you, but you being present, perhaps you and the Commander would care to step into my office for a brainstorming session.”

As they settled into the seats around his desk, Jack poured each a glass of water before sliding the fleet personnel report across the desk and turning his monitor so they could see the Marinestar. “Since there seems to be a strong belief that those of us on Hades' Chest are pirates, I had the thought that perhaps we should play to type.”

Unrolling a chart on his desk he circled a particular area with his grease pencil. “The Cyrannus Triangula Boneyard. We currently have roughly eight thousand fleet personnel of various specialties and ratings aboard with more arriving constantly. Between them and the influx of civilian refuges we are quickly running out of room.

“Over the years we have done a lot of business... Legitimate business, with the Triangula yard.” 

Frowning, Ryx did not look convinced. “Surely the Cylons would have such a location staked out already.”

Reaching back, Jack scratched the back of his head. “As an unmanned facility it is my hope that the Cylons have chosen to do no more than lightly patrol it. After all, why waste ammo on unmanned ships.”

“It can take several hours,” Uri pointed out, “for a ship to power up sufficiently to jump. Time in which the changing state of the vessel would be obvious.”

“Normally I would agree,” Jack replied. “However there is one particular ship there that I feel like we need and I know that its main energizer is always at a hot standby.”

Now Commander Ryx was looking interested. “What ship is that?”

“The fleet repair cradle MONBADE. If we can snag her and maybe scoop up one or more of the decomms, we might be able to put together the beginnings of a new fleet. In the meantime I think I know just where to send the civilians and their ships once they've been processed through here.”

**Cyrannus Triangula Boneyard**

**Late Evening – Day of the Attack**

As soon as the Marinestar KELSO's docking lights turned green 1500 Colonial Fleet crewmen stormed through the airlocks onto the semi-dormant Fleet Repair Dock MONBADE. Marine security teams leading the charge, sweeping the corridors, rooms and crawl spaces in case the toasters had already been here and laid traps.

At the head of the second rank, just behind the Colonial Marines, Arianne Ryx led a group of experienced officers toward the MONBADE's command deck. Once the Marines had completed their locust impersonation, Ryx's team tore into the control consoles, powering up and testing various internal systems. 

At the central plot table, Commander Ryx brought up the ships command lockouts, entering in her codes and waiting for the system to crosscheck them. With their verification against the files, security lockouts on the ships systems were lifted, allowing the others to fully dive into their work. 

“First thing we do at the Chest,” she muttered. “Sever the networks on this beast!”

Lifting the handset from its cradle by the plot table, she dialed up her most critical team. “Engineering, CIC. Status?”

After a moment she was answered. _“Commander, everything here seems to be as expected. The main energizer is in hot standby mode. Give me fifteen minutes to run diagnostics and we should be able to increase the output and begin charging the jump drive.”_

“Understood. Next check in is in fifteen minutes or as soon as the diagnostics are finished, whichever comes first. CIC out.”

“Sensors, get me a DRADIS display, passive only for now.”

“Aye ma'am.”

The display over the plot table flickered before stabilizing on a display of dots scattered across the screen, many bearing names announced by their transponders.

“Damn.”

The Major she had chosen as her Executive Officer for this operation looked over from where he was cycling the damage control board through its diagnostics. “Problem Commander?”

“Every ship in the yard has a transponder tag. If the Cylons have already been here, then the next time they come, they'll know we've been by, which means future visits will be even more risky. Worse, anything we grab will be broadcasting its identity until we locate and deactivate the tags.”

_“Marine Team Four in cradle control to CIC.”_

Ryx scooped up the phone again, scrolling its list to dial cradle control. “CIC, Commander Ryx.”

_“Ma'am, the cradle's not empty.”_

Arianne blinked. “Define 'not empty'.”

_“I'm looking down at the starboard flight pod of a flight one MERCURY. Jason, have you found those floodlights yet?”_

“Say again Team Four?”

_**“Waaaahoooo!!!** Sorry ma'am, the guys are a little excited. Do you remember two years ago, the Battlestar that fried her jump drive mistiming a jump near the Leto pulsar? Well, she's here. I'm looking down at twenty foot tall letters spelling out PHOENIX!”_

“Understood. Finish your sweep and then find out if there is a gangway we can cross-deck with.”

_“Yes Ma'am! I mean I can see the gangway from here, about fifty feet aft and three decks down. It looks to connect with the starboard pod, forward personnel hatch.”_

“Good work, CIC out.”

Checking an internal chart displayed on the plot table while toggling the handset switch to internal intercom she held the horn up to her mouth. “All Marine teams complete your sweeps and then report to the starboard side cradle gangway. Section 27 deck 14. We have a ship in the cradle to check out as well.”

The Major had finished his checks on the damage control board and had moved on to his next assignment. Waving her over he pointed at the data on his screen. “With a Mercury in the bay I'm not sure we have room to snatch her but maybe.”

“What's that, Major Astin?”

“The light carrier IMLAY. I doubt we'll be able to do more than scrap her for parts, but she's been designated as the primary holding site for fighters and raptors that have been sent out here. She's crammed so full of them there shouldn't be any room to walk the decks between them. According to this she's carrying nearly 600 Mark 2, 3 and 4 vipers and has over a hundred Mark 2 and 3 raptors parked on her landing decks.”

“Giftwrapped with a bow on it no less. Word is the GALACTICA managed to get in the fight with the old Mark 2s that were part of her intended museum before she jumped out with that civvy fleet from Ragnar. Okay, lets take a look at the dock space. It will definitely be quicker to scoop the IMLAY than to try crossdecking from her. Anything else?”

“Four Medstars, HOPE, FAITH, CHARITY, and AESCEPALUS are also on hot standby. Raptor teams from the KELSO are already on their way with command and engineering crews. According to the list there are also five Gunstars that were brought in last month. They were scheduled for final shut-down after the Armistice Day holiday.”

Nyx nodded. “We may have to divide the teams up further. Send the details to KELSO actual and let him sort it out.”

Astin glanced at his list again, then at the monitor which was now showing the gargantuan PHOENIX in the cradle. “We have the space to grab at least eight of the best condition Firestars as well, even if they're not powered up. We should be able to dock two each on the PHOENIX's four landing decks.”

Arianne looked at the CIC chronograph. “We'll have to be quick. The four in the upper pods have to be in before we try to snug PHOENIX up tight to make space for the IMLAY. Pick your targets and get the tug teams moving. I want all nine of those ships tucked in tight in the next hour and a half.”

“Commander. Comm chatter on civilian bands. Sounds like survivors, possibly trying to get some of the derelicts going.”

“Understood. Ask the KELSO to detail a raptor to sneak over there and verify the civies. If verified we will initiate contact and bring them on the jump unless they have other plans.”

“If they do?” Major Astin asked.

“Then we arrange a bucket meet for later.”

**Hades' Chest**

**Late Evening – Day of the Attack**

Jack looked up from the conference room table to the large number of people surrounding him. Aside from his immediate subordinates and the family members who formed his leadership council, Admiral Uri had brought in another Colonial Navy Commander and a pair of Colonels who had been recovered from one of the outer battle sites.

“I hate to be the one to put voice to what we all know. Even if we had the fleet with which to force the Cylons out, the Colonies are lost. The nuclear radiation damage to all twelve worlds will leave them uninhabitable within a year and they will remain so for centuries.” The Director took a shuddering breath. “The Cylon intent is clear. They mean to kill every single one of us.”

Around the room a number of those attending sobbed. Others were numb. As a whole, the people of Hades' Chest may not have been in favor of the unified government under the Articles of Colonization, but that did not mean that they were immune to the plight of their fellow men.

“As I told Admiral Uri and Commander Ryx earlier. We may be the last functioning Colony of man in existence and we will do what we must to aid our brothers and sisters.” He looked at his subordinates and his siblings. 

“As the Fleet personnel in the room will attest, we have for years been highly effective at hiding.” His statement eliciting a strained chuckle from around the table. “The government has called us pirates and blamed all manner of nefarious deeds on us. And while we know what we have and have not done in that regard, earlier this evening I made the decision that we are going to embrace the role.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to execute the most audacious act of piracy that the universe has ever seen.”

People were straightening their posture as Director Smythe channeled all of his energy and charisma into the speech.

“We are going to steal every single living human from under the Cylon's noses and leave this area of space!”

Jaws around the table fell open and even the four military officers seemed intrigued.

~-=/\=-~

Of course, broad strokes do not a plan make and from there the meeting broke down into defining the most serious issues. Namely where to put the thousands who were to be retrieved where they would be safe from attack without the Colonial Fleet protecting them.

“Big as Hades' Chest is, you are already nearing capacity,” Colonel Sheryl Adams pointed out.

Jack looked to his brother. “Hawk?”

Reaching into a large pouch, Horace 'Hawk' Smythe quickly unrolled a large chart across the table. “The Gamma Cyrannus system. Four light years away from the Helios double-binary, just inside the edge of the southern veil.”

“Wait,” the other Colonel, Alistair Ross interrupted. “That area was marked as a high-radiation hazard zone and declared off limits.”

Jack and Hawk both wore similar grins before Hawk spoke. “It is. It happens to be a similar type of radiation to that emitted by the Ragnar gas giant. Unfortunately, in addition to its effects on the delicate silica pathways of the Cylon MCP circuitry, it also affects humans, though much more slowly. Of course, with proper shielding and anti-radiation medications humans can sustain life there indefinitely, unlike the current situation on the Colonies themselves. Of course, the radiation gives us the advantage that the Cylons are likely to be time restricted on how long they can search for us. So long as we do not leave visible sign that we are there we should remain safe from them.”

“So you propose hiding ships in the asteroid fields of Gamma Cyrannus?”

“Sort of.” Hawk started placing markers on various places around the chart until there were over a dozen. “Each marker indicates an asteroid similar in size and composition to Hades' Chest that over the years we have mined out and then prepared as a fall-back location should anything ever happen to the Chest. Using bore-mining techniques there is a minimal visual signature to indicate anything has been done to the rocks in question. We have even installed doors on the bore-holes that hide the excavation.”

Commander Cory Newfield leaned forward. “Why am I hearing a but hanging over this conversation?”

“Well, unlike Hades' Chest, none of these rocks are equipped with either thrusters or FTL drives.”

“So we can hide our ships inside the rocks until we have everyone and then we leave.”

“Or,” Jack stated. “We salvage enough thrusters and FTL coils from the battle site wrecks to equip these rocks like Hades' Chest. Our people would be safer under tens of meters of rock than they would in thin-hulled civilian ships. The asteroids would also continue to provide us resources as we traveled and each one would be able to support sufficient people to be a fully functioning colony in its own right, giving the people a sense of place and normalcy while we search for a new home.”

Admiral Uri nodded to the three fleet officers. “Commander Bellamy on the RA has reported that a number of the battle sites have largely intact ships that were shut down by the Cylon virus and left to drift. We continue to recover crew from these vessels. While they are rightfully considered war graves, it is unlikely that the Cylons are going to respect our dead and leave the wrecks as monuments to our civilization. If it were the RA, I think I would prefer that what was left of her continue to serve and save our people. Commander? Colonels? How say you?”

The two Colonels exchanged looks then both nodded to Commander Newfield who took another long look at the chart. With only one old Battlestar and a mere handful of support units they had no hope of taking back their homes. He hoped his own Battlestar, the APHRODITE was not so far gone, but even so, if the ships could still serve and save lives.

“Director, please prepare Gamma Cyrannus. Colonels, Admiral Uri. While the Dread Pirate Smythe is stealing our people from the Cylons, let us not fail in equaling their audacity through stealing our own ships from under the damn Toaster's noses.”

At that moment an aide ran into the room. “Director! The KELSO's back with a small fleet, including a number of civilian ships, several Gunstars and the MONBADE. Also, Commander Ryx reports the successful recovery of 8 additional Firestars, the Light Carrier IMLAY with a full deck-load of fighters and raptors and the Battlestar PHOENIX! They are requesting crew and full resupply for the Gunstars. The other ships will require time to repair and refit.”

“Hawk, get teams together for Gamma Cyrannus and get them over to the MONBADE within the hour. I want her and PHONEIX inside Hades' Hope immediately on your arrival. Get those Gunstars into our docks. We can get them fuel and provisions. Bullets will have to come from existing fleet units or the battle site wrecks. Admiral, can you and your compatriots put together crews for Five Gunstars?”

The Tauron Admiral and the Colonial Commander exchanged glances. “We can,” Newfield replied. “Or we will have serious answers as to why!”


	3. Chapter 2

**Gamma Cyrannus**

**Early Morning – Day After the Attack**

The actinic flash of the MONBADE breaking out of its FTL jump brightly illuminated the asteroid known as Hades' Hope and the surrounding fields of dust. The fleet repair cradle was packed to the ceilings with civilian miners, dockworkers and Colonial Fleet crewmen. Even the PHOENIX had been pressed into service as temporary housing for recovered military. A Raptor soon separated from one of the cradle's integral side-bays.

“Okay,” Hawk Smythe leaned forward in the co-pilot's seat. “Ten degrees right and five down from that reddish boulder.”

“Got it,” the pilot answered. “Coming to hover. Send the signal.”

In the back, the ship ECO keyed in the code provided by their passengers. Below the small craft a rock cover lifted off to one side exposing a small landing bay. Descending into the lit area, the ship settled onto the pad as the rock cover rotated back into place.

“Check your seals. There won't be any air until we're off the pad,” Hawk said.

The half-dozen people on-board the Raptor quickly checked their own and their neighbor's suits for any sign of a bad seal. Check's done the ECO moved to the door. “Evacuating and opening the hatch.”

As their suits stiffened in the vacuum, held breath's were released as there were no hisses of lost air. The crew quickly scrambled out of the ship, crossing the pad to a thick door with a wheel-mounted lock. Several spins opened the door to a room just big enough for the entire party. With the outer door closed, a manual lever equalized the pressure to the inside of the base, allowing them to open the inner door.

Automatic lights illuminated a long corridor leading deep into the rock. At the far end, they stepped into a large room lined with weapons emplacements and defensible positions. Beyond the defenses there was another corridor that ended at an airlock to the interior dock. Once again they checked their seals before leaving the pressurized tunnel. In the main bay, they moved a kilometer along one of the catwalks before entering through another airlock into the main area of the base.

Cracking the seals, they were finally able to remove their helmets and gloves. With their breath fogging in the chill air of the station they now moved swiftly through to the administrative complex and the base command center. Here the team from Hades' Chest started bringing the first of many giant reactors on-line to restore power to the mine's systems.

“MONBADE, Hope. Power-up in progress.” They sent over a low-power wireless system. “Ten minutes to door opening. Status?”

_“Hope, MONBADE. DRADIS clear. Standing by for doors.”_

As power flowed back into the systems, warm air began to flow from the vents, raising the temperature from its maintenance level to something comfortable for occupation. Taking a seat at his station, Hawk watched the power levels rise to proper operating levels. The flip of a switch illuminated the gargantuan docking bay, capable of holding twenty of the fleet's largest ships with room to maneuver. The glass wall in front of them providing a full view of the port.

With power in the green the team ran diagnostics on the locks and hinges of the giant doors, finding no problems, they keyed the sequence to unlock and open the bay.

“Activate and illuminate dock seven,” Hawk ordered. “Decrease bay illumination to navigation levels.”

The bay lighting cut by more than half, other than the dock intended for the MONBADE.

~-=/\=-~

From outside, the crew of the giant fleet repair cradle watched as the end of the rock split open horizontally. Briefly, bright light flooded out into the dust before the illumination dimmed significantly. In less than two minutes, the doors were fully open.

_“MONBADE, Hope. Proceed to inner marker. Docking bow deep at dock seven. Station keeping thrusters only within the bay”_

Commander Ryx glanced around the CIC. “Comm acknowledge. Helm line this beast up and get her inside.”

“Hope, MONBADE. Proceeding to inner marker. Station keeping thrusters only inside bay.”

“Helm on centerline, ahead slow.”

Ryx checked their position on the plot table. “DRADIS to passive.”

“DRADIS passive aye.”

“Cut mains, free drift,” Ryx commanded.

“Laser ranging,” the Deck Officer announced. “Illuminated dock to portside ten klicks deep by three port.”

With a check of the various monitors, the Executive Officer spoke. “Ship is in the bore. Door is closing behind us.”

“Braking thrusters,” Ryx ordered. “Slow by one half.”

“Braking thrusters by one half aye.”

“Coming alongside dock.”

The Commander leaned over the plot table. “Breaking thrusters full stop. Thrusters to station keeping”

“Full stop aye. Ship has stopped. Station keeping aye.”

After a moment watching the monitors to assure they were properly aligned, she again ordered movement. “Starboard thrusters to ten mps.”

“Starboard thrusters ten mps aye,” the helmsman answered.

_“Docking in ninety seconds,”_ Major Astin announced over the intercom. _“All hands docking stations.”_

“Extend docking arms.”

Ryx nodded to acknowledge the deck officer's call for the arms and then after another heartbeat called again to the helm. “Portside thrusters reduce us to five mps.”

“Port thrusters five mps aye.”

Commander Arianne Ryx watched the scrolling numbers indicating the decreasing distance slow, their color flipping from yellow to green. “Cut all thrusters. Signal Engineering, finished with engines.”

Magnetic grapples on the ends of the docking arms made contact with the spacedock pier, absorbing the last motion of the ship. Slowly they dampened out the vibrations, then with all motion stopped, giant gantry arms extended to gently grasp the ship, connecting the the Fleet Repair Cradle's shore support interfaces as they also aligned the main gangway to the dock.

_“MONBADE, welcome to Hades' Hope. Please have your manifest ready for customs inspection.”_

For some strange reason, Commander Ryx and her crew found that rather amusing.

**Hades' Hope**

**Mid-Morning. Day After the Attack**

Nearly ten-thousand people had quickly flooded off the MONBADE into the station. First aboard were the members of the Hade's Chest dog-watch. They would form the core of the Hades' Hope command crew. Swiftly spreading through the station with teams of Fleet volunteers, they quickly got all of the inert systems up and operating. Within the first hour, all of the mining base's power plants were fully on-line and the MONBADE was able to reduce her power output to standby levels and transition to shore-side power.

The mining teams were settled into temporary quarters pending initiation of their parts of the activation plans. Namely the carving out of several very large rooms in five of the other preselected rocks that would be used as farms to feed the coming population.

But that was all still in the future and mostly still in Hawk's head and not even on paper. Hell, he had grabbed the miners as much to get them out of his brother's way as anything to begin with. More immediately important were the teams of longshoremen who had raced around the perimeter of the docking cavern to open up the bay opposite where MONBADE had docked. That bay had the advantage of being able to be sealed and pressurized for dealing with the unloading of cargo in a shirt-sleeve environment. It was also located near an area designated for large-bulk-item storage.

In the original plans this area would be one of several container ports serving the populace but today, Dock 8 was about to become a temporary home to the light carrier IMLAY and its cargo.

Flashing strobes below the administrative complex's observation tower announced the departure of a team of tugs manned by a mix of Chest and Fleet personnel. Swarming forward, their pseudo steampunk-organic grapplers flexing and twisting through test sequences, they schooled around the bow of the MONBADE like primitives worshiping a giant. After a sufficient period of indulgence for its worshipers, the huge lower clam-shell door split and retreated allowing the swarm access to the ships huddled within.

Two of the tugs eased forward, latching on to the stern of the IMLAY. Once secure, the six arms securing the ship within the cradle began to pivot toward the open door and extend. Once fully extended, the back third of the IMLAY was clear of the door. The foremost pair of arms then released and retracted while folding back along the cradle's walls as two more tugs moved forward, latching on to the points the cradle arms had just released.

With the tugs attached and coordinated, the remaining four arms released. Soon thereafter, the tugs began to slowly draw the IMLAY from the MONBADE's bay. Once clear, two more tugs attached themselves near the bow. Once they were secure, the middle pair released and rejoined the school waiting to draw out the real prize.

It took a half hour for the tugs to reorient the carrier and maneuver it bow-first into Dock 8. As the decommissioned warship slid between the gantries, movement like giant mechanical spider legs began as dock-crew reached their equipment out to secure the ship to what would be its home for the foreseeable future. Once the gantries had control, the four tugs detached and jetted across to await their part with extracting the PHOENIX.

Huge rotating red lights flashed and alarms sounded in Dock 8 as the pressure door closed behind the IMLAY. _“Dock 8 is now pressurizing. Thirty minutes to point seven-five bar. Sniffer teams suit up, you go in forty.”_

Outside the dock, teams of knuckle-draggers rescued from over a dozen different ships were gridding out the storage bay into workstations, parking bays and transit lanes. Each workstation was being fitted with as much tools and equipment as was available from Hades' Chest and the few ships they still had available. All of this while chomping at the bit to get their hands on the IMLAY's load of small craft. 

Meanwhile work continued to progress on unloading the Mercury Class Battlestar PHOENIX. As soon as the IMLAY was clear, four tugs had backed into the MONBADE's cavernous repair bay. Once they were in position, the docking arms holding the Battlestar rotated down and began to extend, pushing the nose of the ship out of the bay.

Once the movement stopped, the four tugs deep inside the Fleet Repair Cradle's bay latched on to tow points between the thrusters at the back of the engine block. Two others attached to either side of the bow. With the PHOENIX lowered, the crew of the cradle was able to partially retract the upper clam-shell, it being unable to open normally due to tight clearances from the docking arms, allowing sufficient space for the warship to be extracted.

Once again, great arms were released, retracted and swung out of the way. On command from the MONBADE's dock control room, the tugs began to ease the Battlestar out. Once it cleared the larger vessel, the remaining two tugs moved in to grapple points on the main hull just above either flight pod.

PHOENIX was being moved into Dock 9, immediately in front of the MONBADE. Dock 9 having been designed to perform repair and overhaul on Hades' Chest's own fleet of vessels. It was hoped that the initial recovery efforts would garner FTL coils that could be fitted to replace the burned out ones on the ship. In the meantime, the decommissioned Battlestar had previously been stripped of supplies and consumables. Those would need replaced and a full stem-to-stern maintenance cycle would be needed to cover the two years of benign and not-so-benign neglect the ship had suffered. Luckily there were close to two-thousand currently available fleet personnel just itching to get the ship back into action. With a bit of luck, there may even be enough to crew her arriving with the first group of ships from the Chest.

**Hades' Hope – Dock 8**

**Noon – Day After the Attack**

Senior Chief Orin Blackmon was a bull of a man, short, wide and solid muscle from slinging weights as a youth and Viper parts as an adult. In fact, if there had not already been a deck crewman on his first assignment with the nickname 'Bull' he might have been stuck with that. Instead, the first time the two had gotten together to move a crated Viper without any other equipment, the two of them had immediately been tagged as 'Bull' and 'Dozer'.

Soon after, Orin had decided to cultivate a sleepy look that missed nothing. But when push came to shove... well, he was the Dozer. With the NIGHTFLIGHT shot out from under him, he was more than ready to do some serious shoving.

Raised on Aerilon, he had been wrenching on tractors and other farm equipment since he was old enough to know which end of the tool to hold. Straight out of Fleet basic, it had been almost a given that he would be picked for heavy maintenance training. Today, nearly two decades later, it seemed rather fitting that his first assignment, straight out of nuts and bolts hell had been the carrier IMLAY.

To his right, Major Albert Torsen seemed cut from a similar mold. Senior surviving officer and Chief Engineer of the ZEUS and having arrived at Hades' Chest in the middle of the departure preparations, he had wrangled a place for most of his engineering crew as soon as he had received word that they had the PHOENIX in their bay. But work there would not start until later. Before that he was going to have his team crawl all over the IMLAY to see if she could be reactivated and how quickly.

Horace “Hawk” Smythe stepped up onto a platform along the wall beside the large pressure door, his bald pate reflecting the argon lamps in the ceiling forty feet above. “Okay folks. Sniffer team says that the air is breathable. They also said it smells like a cross between an old gymnasium locker-room and an even older auto garage and fuel station.”

“SOUNDS LIKE HOME TO ME!” One of the knuckle-draggers shouted to everyone's amusement, including Hawk who laughed.

“Thank you for that. We are living in dark days, yet if we can still find humor then we have hope. Major Torsen, we want to feed power to the IMLAY's systems, so first priority is safety checks on the power grid. Chief Blackmon, Manifest shows that she's been stuffed to the gills, Hangar deck, service bays, launch tubes and the landing deck are all crammed full. Lets get the landing deck cleared first then move below once Torsen gives the okay. Dockmaster! Open the bay and extend the ramps!”

Beside him the huge pressure door shifted towards the crowd then rose into a slot in the ceiling. Once up, giant bolts slid home to hold it in place. In front of the door was a forty foot deep platform stretching the full width of the dock. Extending from beneath the dock four twenty foot wide ramps slid out until they were just inside the IMLAY's landing bay, shifted until they were touching along their lengths, and then lowered, making contact with a clang. Now there was an eighty foot wide bridge connecting the IMLAY's flight deck to the dock.

“MAGBOOTS ON!” the Major bellowed. “Blue watch take forward damage control. Green watch take aft damage control. Yellow watch with me at the shoreside distribution node.” He turned and nodded to the Acting Director. “Mr. Smythe.”

Hawk nodded back. “Contact me in dock control when you are ready for the power test.” With that he turned and marched off toward the control booth.

Dozer did not have the luxury of his team being a coherent whole. They were the evacuees of a number of different Battlestars. As such he had divided them up by the largest ship groups and had farmed out the extras to fill holes and equalize numbers.

“SOLARIA, TRITON and BELEROPHON, get those tow-motors going! Looks like the landing deck is all Raptors. NIGHTFLIGHT and TONITRUI, lets get them parked as planned and laid out. And as the Major said, gravity on the IMLAY is OUT! Don't you DARE make me have to rope your sorry asses in!”

~-=/\=-~

In the shoreside power distribution room, Major Torsen studied the sweep of his watch's second hand with mild irritation.

_“Green watch in position.”_

Blue watch had been in place for nearly twenty minutes and Yellow only a couple minutes less. All of their initial test between the two had already been completed but Green had them behind schedule.

“What took so long Jackman?”

_“Some fracker parked Vipers against every single hatch leading from the deck to this corridor, Sir. We had to find one with enough room we could move it out of the way.”_

Torsen shook his head slowly at the fracked up situation. “Understood. Green watch start your tests. Alpha circuit open.”

_“Alpha circuit open. Grounding to hull. Releasing ground. Grounding to neutral. Releasing ground. Grounding to Beta circuit. Releasing ground. Grounding to Gamma circuit. Releasing ground.”_

As Jackman called out each circuit test, Yellow team watched for any stray signals on the meters they had attached on their end of the circuits. Soon they were into testing circuits between the two damage control rooms while Yellow watch made for main engineering. Once there, they made sure all the main feeds were fully disconnected before doing the same series of tests between Engineering and the two damage control rooms. They had been very lucky as they only had a couple of easily isolated line failures.

Leaving most of Yellow watch in Main Engineering, Torsen returned with three others to shoreside power distribution. Reaching back he pulled his alternate radio off his hip. “Dock 8 control, IMLAY. Ready for level four feed.”

_“Roger IMLAY. Low power level four feed.”_

The panel in front of them lit up and the built in meters moved to indicate the presence of power.

“Green and Blue watch. Isolate. Initiating powered tests.”

_“Green, all circuits are open and ready.”_

_“Blue, all circuits open and ready.”_

“Forward first. Close Alpha.”

_“Alpha closed. Good feed. Alpha open.”_

The cycle continued through all the circuits that had previously tested good between the various stations. With testing completed through to opening a full circle from the shoreside node to and between both damage control rooms, Torsen felt much more confident about feeding power into the ship's systems.

“Dock 8 control, IMLAY. Please take us to level 3 power feed.”

_“Understood IMLAY. Increasing to level 3.”_

“Green, Blue and Yellow teams. Lighting circuits only. Verify that all other circuits are off.”

_“Green. All other circuits off. Ready to initialize lighting._

_“Blue. Circuit status verified. Ready for lighting._

_“Main Engineering. All circuits are off.”_

“Connecting all Alpha feeds.”

A noticeable hum built in the room followed by the pinging-popping sound of incandescent bulbs heating up as a dim glow slowly built and grew brighter. Around the ship some of the ancient bulbs could not handle the stress of being powered and they popped and went out. A few even shattered.

“Connecting all Beta feeds.”

There was a flicker as the power fed into alternate circuits.

“Connecting all Gamma feeds.”

Once again the lights flickered and then stabilized. Ever so slowly, the IMLAY was coming back to life.

“Good work so far. Everyone knows their assignments from here. Blue watch focus on the blowers first with the life-support systems. Green watch, I'll meet you at Gravity control. Yellow watch start your safety walkdown.

~-=/\=-~ 

Dozer stood to one side of the landing deck watching the team from the SOLARIA maneuvering another Raptor into position for the returning tow-motor. A loud cheer went up as the mercury-vapor lamps nearly a hundred and sixty feet overhead came on illuminating the rows of Raptors still filling two-thirds of the landing deck.

Because of their FTL and passenger carrying ability, every one of the Raptors was an extremely valuable commodity. As such, Chief Blackmon had already set the best maintenance techs from each crew to work testing systems on the ships that had been moved into the storage bay. The sooner they could get them working and crewed, the more people they could save from the various battle sites and the Colonies themselves. The MONBADE had carried in dozens of rescued pilots with just that thought in mind and they were chomping at the bit to get back in the air.

Another cheer came, this time from the storage bay as the first Raptor was cleared of all its checks after the replacement of a few failed parts. Stepping off the IMLAY onto the ramp he could see a team from NIGHTFLIGHT pushing it to a fuel bowser next to the airlock at the side of the storage bay. They would give it enough fuel to fly over to the MONBADE where it would be fully serviced and prepared for its first mission. A couple guys in jock-smocks, gloves in inverted helmets under their right arms, were already doing a pre-flight walk-around of the bird. Meanwhile there were well over a hundred more to go and that was before they even got to the Vipers.


	4. Chapter 3

**Gamma Cyrannus - Hades' Hope**

**Afternoon – Day After the Fall**

Multiple FTL flashes announced the arrival of a half-dozen passenger liners and twice that number of freighters escorted by a pair of heavily damaged Firestars. At this point, Director Smythe of Hades' Chest was still controlling who was sent to Gamma Cyrannus, so the liners were loaded with more Fleet personnel, miners and dock workers. They also had one ship full of ship construction personnel who had been recovered from a large segment of the Scorpio shipyard that was found intact.

The freighters were loaded down with consumables and mining equipment that had been quickly scavenged from the Zodia Belt operations as their crews were spirited away ahead of the Cylon onslaught.

As the twenty ships slowly made their way into the Hades' Hope docking bay, Hawk Smythe wore a path pacing in front of the monitors. “Faster. We have to do this faster. If the Toasters jump in and see them, we're burnt toast.”

Finally the last ships, the two Firestars, were inside the bore and the outer door could close. Only then did Hawk exhale and let the soothing flow of directing the various ships to the most appropriate berth enable him to relax.

He had the load of shipyard workers berth at Dock 11 and set them up in quarters adjoining Dock 9, putting them immediately to work refitting the PHOENIX and getting the eight Firestars in her flight bays extracted and refurbished. The Fleet personnel were split between the MONBADE, the Dock 9 projects and the team working on unloading and refurbishing the small craft from the IMLAY.

In a moment of pure weirdness, Smythe discovered that his brother had sent him the entire Faculty and senior class of the Libra Culinary Institute who had been doing their summer term tour of the major food centers of the Colonies. They were quickly divided up amongst the cafeterias in the opened sections. Luckily for him, one of the freighters happened to be hauling both fresh and preserved foodstuffs that enabled him to stock them to the LCI's satisfaction, though still short of their exacting standards.

Another Fleet Commander and four more Colonels had been rescued and sent with the Fleet delegation. The Commander had been in charge of the segment of the Scorpio yards and had been severely injured but was expected to recover. Admiral Uri wanted him placed in charge of the MONBADE once he recovered and for Ryx to take command of the PHOENIX. Until then she was to maintain command of the Fleet Repair Cradle pending further orders.

When one of the Colonels, who had been the Commander's logistics officer on the yard, had given her the message, she had merely nodded and immediately put him to work helping her de-network the MONBADE so as to reduce its vulnerability to hacking attacks.

As late afternoon came around he called in the various team leads, both Commanders and all the Colonels for status reports on the various projects.

The group gathered around the table in the admin complex conference room. Once more Hawk had the chart of Gamma Cyrannus spread out with the various markers placed. This time one was a deep blue and five of them were green, with the marked remainder being gray. 

“Lets start with the activity at Dock 8. Major Torsen has been evaluating the IMLAY while Senior Chief Blackmon has been leading the combined deck crews working on unloading her. Chief?”

With a glance at the Major, who nodded, Dozer started. “Currently we have unloaded approximately thirty-five Raptors and the landing deck is still half full of them. Of those that have been unloaded, we have already cleared six for flight and down checked five others as requiring more extensive repairs than we are willing to commit time to so long as there are others that can be fixed quickly. The down checked machines are being used as a source of parts for the others enabling us to more quickly reactivate some of the units. We have not yet recovered any Vipers, prioritizing the Raptors due to their FTL and passenger capacities' usefulness in rescue and recovery operations.

“There is already one piece of good news regarding the Vipers. While they weren't on the listed manifest, there are a pair of pranged up Mark VI vipers in the midst of the Raptors on the landing deck. I had a team power one of them up and they were able to download the full flight-control software package.” Dozer pulled a disk from his pocket. “It is the same software that the Mark VIIs were originally shipped with. Based on what my techs are telling me, it should allow us to re-boot any Mark VIIs we have or can recover and should not be susceptible to the Cylon CNP hack that was integrated into the more recent updates.”

Hawk smiled. “That is good news. I'm sure Commander Ryx will be happy to make sure copies of this are made and distributed to all deck crews for installation.”

“Gladly!”

“Major. How's the IMLAY?”

Torsen took a deep breath. “She could be worse. While we were able to get shore-side power working with basic life-support, gravity and lighting functional, she is suffering from years of neglect. I estimate it would take six to nine months of extensive yard work to get her back into an operational state. A full year if you want her to be combat effective and not merely to serve as a small craft transport.”

“Neither good nor bad then. We'll put together a team to continue to monitor her systems while she's got live power. Once they're on-site, your team can report to work on getting the PHOENIX back in fighting trim.”

Major Torsen nodded to the Director.

“Next is the PHOENIX. Commander Ryx?”

“The PHOENIX has been successfully extracted from the MONBADE and docked in the repair and maintenance bay directly in front. She has no problems accepting and distributing shore-side power and indications are that her primary and secondary energizers and thrusters should be functional after completion of basic maintenance. Her biggest problem currently is that all four of her FTL coils are burned out and cannot be repaired.”

Turning he faced Commander Hyram Montgomery, sitting in a wheelchair next to the table. “Commander, you worked Scorpio Yards for years. We are unlikely to be able to build new FTL coils any time soon and finding spares could be problematic. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Hmm,” Montgomery stroked his salt and pepper beard. “PHOENIX is a flight 1 Mercury. They were equipped with the SY5700mil. By positioning and field shape it takes two to jump her with the second set as backup and immediate second jump ability. The closest civilian match is the SDciv5900. ScorpiaDynamics licensed the design from Scorpio Yards and then made some improvements. If we swap the controllers then, operationally, the coils are virtually identical. The good news is that seven of the freighters currently docked out there come standard with the SDciv5900.”

Hawk took a long look out the window into the bay. “Right now we have a glut of freighters and a dearth of Battlestars. It may take some horse-trading, but I'll get you four of those coils.

“In other good news, the cafeterias will be open this evening for dinner. No offense but Fleet survival rations have me contemplating the specific pleasures of not doing so. Namely, if I'm dead I don't have to eat them.”

He looked around the room. “Any other business?”

Commander Ryx cleared her throat. “Actually, now that the MONBADE has been unloaded and de-networked I would like to make another run to the Triangula Boneyard. Before we left, we discovered how to disable all the tracking beacons on the decoms, so if the Cylons had not yet visited, they won't have an accurate count of the ships, and if they had, by deactivating all the beacons, they'll have to do an inventory to figure out what is actually missing. 

“Aside from that, there were three decommissioned Battlestars still there that I feel like we need to grab. Two Jupiters and an early model Odin. One of the Jupiters has been heavily stripped and is missing most of her armor but the other and the Odin look to be relatively intact. I also left a small team there with instructions to stuff them to the gills with everything they can break loose. I should be able to grab a Jupiter and the Odin in one swing. Especially if the team did what I expected. We should also be able to pick up six more Firestars. Ten or even more if I can make two trips and get the second Jupiter. I plan to send a pair of Raptors ahead to make sure the Cylons haven't dropped in and made a mess.”

“In that case,” Smythe gestured toward the blue marker on the chart. “I have a proposal for the Fleet personnel. GC497 turned out to have a very, very rich mineral core that we mined extensively and sold back to the Colonies to fund our operation. As a result, its interior bay is almost three times the size of this one. We also built four maintenance and repair docks there instead of just the one like here.

“I propose that we activate GC497 and move all future fleet activities there. It would give the fleet a place to focus on repairing and rebuilding without the civilians being under foot.”

He unrolled another chart showing a cross-section of GC497. 

Commander Montgomery mused over the chart. “One thing it does not have is a dedicated decontamination facility. We know the Cylons really like nuclear weapons. Could we carve out a second bay from the opposite end and link it with the main bay. That way heavily irradiated ships can be docked safely and processed for decontamination before being moved to the main bay for repairs. 

Hawk scratched the back of his head. “We have a large number of miners on hand already. I was planning to put them to work digging out farming space on the five rocks marked in green. However that would be a long-term project. Should the rest of you concur, I can put them to work within hours on preparing the second bay.”

**Cyrannus Triangula Boneyard**

**Evening – Day After the Fall**

Kylie Bauer had been born and raised on Hade's Chest but had attended university on Virgon, the Smythe family contacts making sure that any who wanted could return to the Colonies for education. With her degree in ship system engineering, and ten years spent rising through and then leading the Chest's yard apes, she had volunteered to lead the civilian contingent in raiding the boneyard. 

She shook the stray hair from her face as she looked over their preparations for Commander Ryx's return with the MONBADE. The Jupiter class battlestar, SATURN and the Odin class battlestar HEIMDAL had been docked together with the HEIMDAL snugged tightly beneath its larger brother. With SATURN's flight bays extended, there was just enough room for the HEIMDAL's primary hull to tuck in between them and mate to the Fore and Aft ventral docking collars of the larger battlestar.

As the Raptor slowly drifted around the pair she checked all the connections that had been made to tie the two together to make it easy for the MONBADE to do a quick scoop and scoot.

Happy with the inspection, she watched as another flight of shuttles arrived from the freighters with more weapons coils and other assorted parts to be stowed. Both ships had been stuffed with weapons systems from vessels that had previously been or were in the process of being scrapped. Luckily the freighters they were stored on were relatively nearby. The five hundred knuckle-draggers, yard apes and other volunteers had already filled the SATURN and now were nearly done working on the storage bays of the HEIMDAL.

As soon as they got done unloading, the majority of the crew would pull out and one last Firestar frigate would be tucked into the HEIMDAL's starboard landing bay. The teams would then start moving the rest of the loads from the freighters to the heavily stripped Jupiter class that no one had found the name for yet, her nameplates having been removed in preparation for scrapping.

Her bones were still good though, and they had already stuffed three Firestars aboard her. Two in her starboard bay and one forward in her port. A fourth was ready to be placed aboard once the shuttle runs were over with.

Soon, the dozen shuttles launched from the HEIMDAL's bay and the tugs began pushing the Firestar into the landing bay. Once down, the magnetic clamps on the Firestar's extended landing legs would hold it in place to the deck.

The painfully slow process had her sweating and again pushing the brown hair from her face as she watched the docking with one eye while the other hovered on the DRADIS console, just waiting for the Cylons to show back up and catch them in the act.

Over the past twenty hours, four separate Cylon raiders had jumped in at five hour intervals, zoomed through the yard and jumped out. The first one had caused a minor panic as everyone expected to immediately be attacked by a returning Cylon fleet, but apparently the early warning from the perimeter of the yard had been effective in getting everyone either under-cover or playing dead and the raider had not seen anything.

Since there had been no immediate followup on the first raider, the team felt confident that it was the first Cylon to visit the boneyard. Otherwise, the already missing Fleet Repair Cradle, Gunstars and Medical Ships should have resulted in some form of violent reaction on the part of the Toasters.

The second, third, and fourth had followed the same pattern and the team had only just resumed their operations after laying low for the most recent visit. Now they had just under five hours to steal three battlestars from the yard. Ships that would definitely register as missing the next time the Cylons checked.

She nodded as the tug backed out of the HEIMDAL's bay. “Send the message to Raptor 3-7-5. First snatch is go.”

Without acknowledging, that Raptor immediately jumped out. Its passage only marked by the brief flash of light as its FTL drive tore open space for the jump to where the MONBADE was staging. In ten minutes, a brilliant explosion of light marked the arrival of the Fleet Repair Cradle a mere five kilometers behind the two mothballed warships.

The giant clam shell doors of the repair bay opened like the mouth of a prehistoric beast as the massive ship slipped forward to swallow its prey whole.

SATURN and HEIMDAL now out of her hands, Kylie turned attention back to the final preparations. Already the tugs that had been instrumental in docking the two warships together were moving several of the still full freighters over to the ventral docking ports on the remaining Jupiter. These ships had been chosen for both their size and their condition and would be jumped out with the battlestar. Some were loaded with removed ship's systems, others were full of armor plate from the ships. The smaller and less structurally sound freighters were being emptied by the shuttles at a breakneck pace. They knew they were all leaving as soon as the MONBADE returned from her first jump and this would be their last chance to grab anything here.

Ryx's last orders to have everything ready were still echoing in Kylie's ears. Taking a quick survey of the yard manifest she had downloaded, she detailed four tugs to grab the two best condition mothballed gunstars and drag them over near the Jupiter. Another scroll through the list had her dispatching another pair of tugs and a Raptor to the far side of the yard to grab a freighter full of recovered FTL coils. Maybe there would be time to get them loaded too.

**Gamma Cyrannus – GC497**

**Evening – Day After the Attack**

One moment, GC497 was just one more proto-planetoid among many. The next, a gigantic cork of rock seemed to move outward then separate and begin to slide apart on one end. As it reached its maximum, the bright flash of the MONBADE's FTL emergence briefly illuminated its interior as the Fleet Repair Cradle made its arrival outside the entrance to the now exposed bay.

Quickly aligning itself the ship moved into the bay as a fleet of tugs swarmed from the docks to greet her in the middle. Even as the ship passed the entrance, her giant service bay was opening to disgorge the two warships secured within. This time the ship would not be taking the time to dock and then unload. With the Cylons on a suspected five hour clock they needed to get the SATURN and HEIMDAL unloaded and get back to grab the last ship and jump back out before that clock could expire.

Peacetime safety rules were thrown out the window as the gantry arms shifted the linked ships outward and tugs began latching on while the MONBADE was still in motion. With the tugs attached, the crew of the cradle then proceeded to unlatch and stow all the gantry arms. As the last pair released, the Fleet Repair Cradle fired its braking thrusters and the two battlestars slipped from the Cradle's repair bay like a newborn calf.

The remaining tugs swarmed in as the MONBADE closed its bay doors and began the ponderous pivot to realign with GC497's harbor entrance.

What had taken an hour to load and secure for jump had been unloaded in a mere twenty minutes. Even as the rest of the tug swarm docked, the MONBADE slipped back out into free space and disappeared into FTL. In a mere forty-five minutes she had come and gone. With luck they would be back again with plenty of time to spare.

**Hades' Chest**

**Late Evening – Day After the Attack**

Jack skimmed through the Boneyard Raptor report Admiral Uri had just handed him. “Well, it looks like we've gotten everything we're going to get out of Cyrannus Triangula. According to this the Cylons are now methodically blasting apart every remaining ship in the yard.”

The Admiral nodded. “Understandable once they discovered the recovery operation we had been running there. It looks like Commander Ryx timed things out just about perfectly.”

“It was rather audacious of her to grab all four battlestars that were there and the freighter loads of parts will not go unappreciated either. Hawk's progress report is also rather encouraging. I was only planning for him to get Hades' Hope up and running, but I find I cannot disagree with his plan for GC497 at all. Damn, we need a real name for that rock, GC497 sounds like some kind of weight loss drug.”

Commander Newfield looked up from the report of recovered fleet personnel he was skimming. “How about Poseidon's Trident and Trident Base? He being the patron God of Picon and Picon being the home of fleet command.”

Jack looked thoughtful. “I like it. Admiral? Baring us finding a surviving Colonial Fleet Admiral, it will be your command.”

Uri's brow too, wrinkled. “Agreed. It honors our fallen and our history. So, Commander. Where do we stand on personnel?”

Cory picked up the cover sheet of the report he had been skimming. “So far we have recovered approximately fifty thousand fleet personnel from the various battle sites. Those numbers are still in flux and we have not yet made it to several of the larger ship concentrations nor completely searched some of those we have already reached. At this time those numbers are heavily skewed toward pilots as getting them and/or their fighters before they ran out of air has been our first priority. Currently we have recovered nearly twenty thousand Viper and Raptor crew.

“The rest are a mix of deck and command crew for various ships. Currently we still only have the three Commanders, myself, Arianne Ryx and Hyram Montgomery. Of them, only Ryx and myself are combat Commanders.” He paused, looking at Admiral Uri. “These list are all rescued personnel, not those assigned to active ships, aside from Ryx with the MONBADE. We are now up to over a dozen Colonels, over a hundred Majors, both pilot and crew track, about half of them being either CAGs for their ships or the like. The rest build from there. The vast majority of the pilots picked up are Lieutenants and we have about four times as many Captains as Majors.”

Uri flipped the pages in front of him. “Lets separate out the Raptor crews and those Viper pilots who want to volunteer for Raptor Pilot or ECO duty and get them over to the Hope. The team going through the IMLAY are already getting the mothballed Raptors up and running. The sooner we get them back out here, the more of our personnel we can recover.”

Newfield jotted notes on his briefing pad. “As soon as we're done I'll get the Colonel we put in charge of personnel on it. The balance of those recovered are a mix of deck, maintenance, gunnery and engineering crew across numerous specializations.”

Leaning forward, Jack pulled a sheet out of the stack in front of him. “And this is our active fleet status?”

Uri and Newfield both nodded.

“Current active units are the Battlestar RA, with the Gunstar's ISIS and HATHOR. Also the Marinestar KELSO with four Firestars in escort,” Admiral Uri answered. “They are currently performing SAR operations of several outer battle sites.”

_“Attention. FLT jump in two minutes.”_

All three men looked up toward the speaker on the wall.

“All of our ships have the sealed and coded rendezvous schedule,” Uri noted. “In addition to the above units we have sent Raptors to all of the known fleet rally points. So far they have sent us a dozen damaged and undamaged Firestars and five Gunstars ranging from moderate to severe damage. There are also another two moderately damaged Marinestars. One evacuated from the Canceron Military Academy with the faculty and cadet classes, the other did a scoop of the Virgon station personnel, jumping away as the Cylons were nuking it out of orbit. The dock crew are doing what they can to patch up the worst of those ships so we can jump them to Gamma Cyrannus. So far, though, nothing heavier than Gunstars have shown up in the ship to ship combat categories.”

“What about the decoms we brought in?”

“We've assigned a Colonel to command each one,” Newfield picked up. “They've been given first choice of available personnel in assembling their crews and all five ships are now fully manned. Consumables have been loaded from Hades' Chest's stores, however the available shells for the weapons loadouts are light. We've set up ammo transfers from the most heavily damaged Gunstars and Firestars to them and expect to have them ready to deploy by morning. BARGER and DUKE will join the KELSO on their search grid. IMAHARA, SCYTHE, and PAN will deploy with the undamaged Firestars and your light carrier SAGE with as many Raptors as we can get aboard her to a new search area equidistant from the first two groups and the Colonies. All three groups will move inward, avoiding Cylon contact.”

“I recommend we send all unassigned fleet personnel and the damaged ships to get Trident Base operational,” Uri suggested. “According to the Doctors, Commander Montgomery won't be in physical condition to ship out on the MONBADE for several weeks but he should be okay to oversee the establishment and activation of our new harbor.”

Jack pulled out a different sheet. “In that case, lets run down the civilian side and determine where we're sending what we have to most effectively support our operations. First off, Hades' Chest will continue with its established jump plan and sending out Raptors to find any civilian traffic we can and get it here for evaluation and possibly additional loading before sending it on to Gamma Cyrannus.

“Currently there are a dozen liners in our docks. Most are running at partial capacity and we are working to consolidate their passengers down for the jump to Hades' Hope. The emptied liners will be held here for either transporting recovered fleet personnel or housing evacuees from the Colonies.

“We also have an equal number of freighters carrying a mix of cargoes. Half of them being loaded with either food or other consumables that were being shipped to various stations around the system. I'm going to send four of them to Poseidon's Trident to stock the base for the people you're sending. The other two will go to Hades' Hope to increase their stocks to support the civilians we'll be sending them shortly.”

Jack paused as the sensation of the FTL jump drive activating washed through the room.

“I still can't believe you jump something this big,” Newfield complained.

“It's just a matter of coordination among properly tuned drive coils,” Director Smythe answered. “We have had three tylium tankers arrive and they were immediately sent on to Gamma Cyrannus. I would rather not have something that explosive in my docks unless I'm actually refueling. They can unload in either Hades' Hope or Poseidon's Trident until we need them. 

“Finally we got lucky, or rather the ARKIPELAGO crew did. I'm guessing they survived the Cylon attack due to the disabling effect of the pun in their name. They're a sublight Agro Ship with two dozen domes. It just so happened that they were close to our last jump point and a Raptor team was able to lead them in. They're currently docked at the back of the bore until we reach the operational point where we can jump the CHEST back to Gamma Cyrannus. Currently they're configured three quarters grains with the rest general truck farm vegetables. In the meantime, since we have an excess of both survival rations and available processed supplies, I've asked them to convert to growing for the seed stocks we will need once we establish the farm chambers in some of mines we're converting.”

Uri looked down at his notes. “Commander, how long before the worst of the Gunstars will be able to jump to Trident Base?”

Newfield checked the appropriate report. “About four hours.”

“Then that's how long we have to get the personnel assignments wrapped up,” Jack rubbed his hands together, “and to get people loaded to send over to Gamma Cyrannus.”

**Gamma Cyrannus**

**Three Days After the Attack**

Aboard the Medstar CHARITY, docked within Hades' Hope, a Model One with the name Ivan Vilac slipped into a coma among the other patients in the radiation exposure ward. Two cabins over, a Model Eight named Sophia also succumbed to radiation exposure.

No one realized that neither of these two casualties had been exposed on one of the colonies, nor did they suspect that either of them were anything other than human.

On board Poseidon's Trident, a recently arrived young Lieutenant named Barbara Seis had just come off shift in the command center where she had been plotting the position of each of the occupied planetoids for the Admiral. In her quarters she placed the barrel of her pistol in her mouth.

Spread among the dozen former mines that were being converted to Colony Ships a further ten human-form Cylons were suffering through various stages of radiation poisoning. The onset of symptoms only somewhat ameliorated by the level of shielding provided by the rock habitats.

**Cylon Resurrection Ship**

**Three Days After the Attack**

“Strange.” The Model Three monitoring the systems mused aloud.

A Model Four looked up from his own station. “What is it sister?”

“Failed uploads,” the Three answered. “Three of them in close proximity.”

“Unusual but not completely unexpected considering the number of our brothers and sisters who have gone through the system since the attacks began,” the Four replied.

“I suppose whatever killed them could have corrupted the data transfer.”

“Hopefully whatever occurred is of limited scope, but set a marker to watch for more just in case. If it continues, we may have to adjust our systems to ensure at least a partial recovery.”

“Unfortunately these three are beyond any hope,” she keyed the system to box the corrupted files. “May God hold you in his heart brother and sisters.”


	5. Chapter 4

**Battlestar PHOENIX – Gamma Cyrannus**

**Five Days After the Attack**

Arianne Ryx rounded the last corner leading to the Combat Information Center of her new command. Nodding to the maintenance crew that was replacing the glass panel doors of the CIC she stepped around the stack of metal plates waiting to be mounted in the frames. Yes, the glass had looked sleek and modern when the politicians came calling, but in no way, shape or form had it held up to the rigors of combat.

A marine just inside snapped to attention with a shouted: “Commander on deck!”

“As you were,” she replied automatically.

She had turned the MONBADE over to one of Montgomery's Colonels less than an hour ago, leaving him with the rest of the team who had gotten the cradle operational and pulled off three daring raids on the Boneyard before the Cylons caught on. Even now, she could see the gigantic repair ship on the monitors, maintenance crews scrambling to prepare her to deploy on a scoop mission to where a patrolling Battlestar had been found broken into two potentially repairable pieces.

Arianne shook her head, clearing the stray thoughts. MONBADE's missions were now someone else's problem. Getting PHOENIX combat ready was now her sole focus. Spying her target, she stepped carefully through the nest of cables tracing all through the CIC as teams tested, and if necessary repaired, the various systems. “Major Torsen.”

He looked up from the engineering repeater panel, which was displaying four brilliant red lights amidst a sea of green and amber. “Commander Ryx. Welcome aboard.” 

Taking his extended hand, she shook it firmly. “Aside from FTL, what is our drive status?”

Albert ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. “Over-all not bad, especially considering that she has had very little maintenance done since the accident fused her jump coils. We finished servicing the mains this morning and should be done with all the maneuvering thrusters in another six to eight hours.”

“Excellent. Because Hades' Hope only has the one repair dock, we will be relocating to Trident Base tomorrow morning. The four freighters that are donating their jump coils have already left and the first two coils should be extracted by the time we arrive. How long do you expect it will take to remove our damaged coils and replace them?”

“That depends on the method we use for the replacement. Fleet protocol calls for the removal of each drive as one piece through the dorsal hull, however this involves removing four large sections of armor and then cutting out five decks worth of structure to get to where they are installed. Due to the work involved in removing and replacing the superstructure and armor, we would be looking at six months minimum.”

“Not exactly a useful time-frame for our needs.”

The Major nodded. “Definitely not. Luckily, the civilian model drive we're replacing ours with was designed to be modular. That was one of the big improvements ScorpiaDynamics came up with over the Scorpio Yards model. It comes apart into seven discrete pieces, the largest of which can be maneuvered from the flight deck through the cross-link into the main fore-aft corridor. We'll still have to cut through several bulkheads to get to the drive rooms, but nowhere near as many nor any as structurally critical as the ones using the other method. We can be jump capable in 7 days and combat capable in nine. Perhaps faster if we can keep teams going around the clock.”

“That sounds like our plan then,” Arianne nodded.

“Indeed. As soon as we got our hands on the data sheets for the SDs we realized this would be the preferred method. Teams have already begun opening up the necessary bulkheads and cutting apart the SY coils so they can be extracted the same way. Oh, those time frames, they're totals and we've already been working this for two days, so seven days from now PHOENIX should be combat capable again.”

“Excellent news Major, I'll let you get back to the thrusters.”

**Poseidon's Trident – Cyrannus Gamma**

**Five Days After the Attack**

Three bright flashes announced the arrival of the Battlestar RA and her Gunstar escorts. Moments later seven more flashes announced the arrival of the Marinestar KELSO with two more Gunstars and four Firestars. Finally one last group arrived, bringing a further three Gunstars, the Chest's auxiliary Light Carrier SAGE and another handful of Firestars into the system.

For the first time, the entire known surviving warfleet was gathered. Stuffed aboard in every free space was as much material and as many small craft as the combined units could safely gather. Even as their new home base was opening the doors to its harbor, swarms of those same small craft were launching from the various ships, all of them angling for the same point in space.

In the command center of Trident Base, Commander Hyram Montgomery rolled his wheelchair up to the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the harbor. Docked to the far wall, the three decommissioned Battlestars, SATURN, HEIMDAL and the recently identified ANUBIS were being emptied of all the material that had been stuffed aboard them before they were retrieved. Along the same hemisphere of the bay, three container yards had been converted to landing docks where ten Firestars were currently parked on their landing legs and being evaluated for repair and reactivation. A further eight would be arriving with the PHOENIX when she transferred over from Hades' Hope in the morning.

Of the four repair docks, two were currently occupied by four of the five damaged Gunstars. The fifth having been so heavily damaged that the jump from Hades' Chest had broken her back. She had been carefully towed to a dock near the two decommissioned Gunstars that had been retrieved with the ANUBIS. There, her stores were off-loaded for redistribution while a Scorpio Yards team tried to determine if she could be repaired. They were not hopeful. In the meantime, she would be scavenged to get the two decoms back in operation. But in spite of dealing with the damaged ships and lost comrades, the arrival of the active warships gave the fleet personnel hope. 

Checking the top of today's activity list, Montgomery noted that the MONBADE was scheduled to pick up both pieces of Commander Newfield's APHRODITE. One of the docks near the decoms was being held open for her. The Odin class Battlestar had sheered along a line just aft of the alligator head, but it was believed that the two segments could be rebuilt and reconnected. Twenty-four hours of observation had not seen a single Cylon Raider fly through that particular battlefield, so as a test of how closely the Cylons were watching the outer battle sites, the Fleet Repair Cradle was going to snag her while several teams of Raptors kept an eye on the area for the next five days.

On the opposite hemisphere, a further four container yards had been converted to a fleet Viper maintenance facility. Traffic control coordinators, both officer and enlisted were already busy directing the waves of recovered MarkVII Vipers to those bays. The teams on the recovery fleet had been shuttled copies of the MarkVI software recovered from the bird on the IMLAY and they had kept busy purging and reactivating as many of the recovered fighters as they could. It was hoped that by the time the PHOENIX was ready to deploy, they would have sufficient Vipers to give her a full 8 squadron combat load plus the two reserves.

His team was also preparing to remove the PHOENIX's small craft manufacturing facilities. They were now far too valuable to be risked on a combat vessel. Instead they would be installed in a dedicated factory space adjacent to the Viper base. Shifting light and shadows by the bore-hole drew his attention to the RA, ISIS and HATHOR making their way into the harbor.

A glance at the notepad strapped to the cast on his right leg reminded him of the many things that needed to be done to finish converting this formerly civilian facility into a fully functional fleet base. The mining team Horace Smythe had given him was making excellent progress on the decontamination chamber and secondary entrance. The deep end of the harbor had been turned over to the mining operation where there were now parked three mining ships, one for heavy equipment, one for ore processing and the third as a smelter for the high quality metals coming out of the bore.

Hyram made a note to see about finding if any foundry ships had been recovered or, if necessary, getting one built from one of the decoms or a recovered wreck. Foundry ships would enable them to make armor plate, heavy steel beams and the gun barrels needed to repair or build warships.

Where was he. Oh, the miners. The thousand men currently working were going to be kept busy for quite a while. Once the decontamination chamber and its entrance were finished he had mapped out six locations around the circumference perpendicular to the bore hole where he wanted external Viper bases set in with launch tubes and landing facilities. Each base capable of holding the equivalent of a Mercury class Battlestar's fighter wing. They would be connected to the central chamber by long zig-zag corridors large enough to transport Raptors and Vipers from the central core to the bases.

They were also responsible for digging out the emplacement locations for the thrusters that were to be installed around the decontamination end of Poseidon's Trident and for the placement of the FTL coils once they knew what they had and could calculate their ideal locations. 

His head shook at the insane genius of Johann Smythe and his engineers. Four Cylon Baseship jump engines. The largest the pre-war Colonies had ever designed. Six FTL coils to each engine for a total of twenty-four coils, all of which had to not only be perfectly placed, but precisely synchronized for Hades' Chest to jump. And they made it seem routine.

Docked between the decoms and the mining fleet were the freighters full of salvage from the Boneyard. His eyes landed on the freighter full of FTL coils and his mind briefly locked up trying to calculate the intricacies of using that particular mix and match hodgepodge to achieve the Smythe's result.

The light from the harbor entrance suddenly cut out. During his musing the last of the ships had passed through the bore and the immense door had closed behind them. The Gunstars and Firestars had already flushed all of their small craft and were making for the dock facilities under the guidance of the Trafcon team. 

RA and SAGE remained near the center of the bay. He watched as several large shuttles lifted off from the Viper base... Things all around here were going to need names. More than just Poseidon's Trident and Trident Base. Again his pen hit the notepad. _Start naming aspects of the base for our fallen that we won't forget them._ He flipped to the page covering the facility that was going to be divided between the operations and logistics arms of the fleet. _Admiral Corman Fleet Operations Center,_ he jotted down. Now if he could just get the equipment necessary to outfit a proper war room.

His attention returned to the cavernous bay as the shuttles turned for their landing approaches. Shortly after the shuttles docked with the RA and SAGE, the remainder of their small craft, Vipers, Raptors and Shuttles departed for the base. No longer needing space to conduct flight operations those ships too began moving toward designated docking facilities.

Hades' Chest was still conducting searches for any civilian shipping, though less and less was being found as those not yet located were either caught by the Cylons or continued to jump further away from the Twelve Worlds. The Chest would be arriving in Gamma Cyrannus soon, and with it Director Smythe, Admiral Uri and the rest of the brain trust that had assembled the plan.

They were expected aboard soon after the PHOENIX's arrival. Stage one was done. Nearly a hundred thousand fleet personnel had been recovered and almost four hundred thousand civilians had either been rescued from disabled liners or their ships directed here upon encountering the Chest's operations. All were now located in one the fourteen hollowed out rocks in Gamma Cyrannus' Hart Belt or the Hades' Chest. 

Now the details of stage two and three needed to be ironed out.

**Battlestar PHOENIX**

**Morning – Six Days After the Attack**

“Power-up sequence complete,” Major Torsen announced from the Combat Information Center's Engineering Station. “PHOENIX is now running fully on internal power.”

Cheers erupted from the throats of the CIC crew and quickly spread to the corridors.

A wide grin splitting her face, Arianne turned to the Executive Officer the Admiral had assigned her, Colonel Sheryl Adams. “XO, notify Hope Station that we are ready to disconnect shore side power and begin undocking.”

Colonel Adam's own enthusiasm was barely repressed. “Aye Ma'am!”

The order was quickly passed through and very shortly, the crew was deep into the process of departing from the repair dock that had brought their ship back to life.

“Dock Nine control reports all clamps released and gantries retracted.”

Ryx glanced at the monitors. “Portside thrusters ten MPS. Take her out nice and easy helm.”

“Portside ten Aye. Starboard motion,” the helmsman responded.

“Gantries clear,” Sheryl added. “Approaching harbor centerline.”

“Stop us on the centerline helm. Starboard thrusters five MPS.”

“Starboard five aye. Slowing approach. Centerline, thrusters starboard five and stop. Station keeping on centerline.”

“Harbor tugs standing by.”

Arianne gave her crew a hard look. “And they can keep standing by! Y-axis, 180 degree turn to port. Point five revolution.”

“Yes MA'AM!” The helmsman nearly shouted. “Port turn one eight zero degrees. Two minute circle.”

The forward starboard and the aft port thruster banks fired starting the massive warship on a pivot about its vertical axis. At sixty seconds the opposite thruster banks fired, bringing PHOENIX to a halt with her bow pointing directly toward the harbor entrance.

“Thrusters ahead fifty MPS until clear of the Harbor.”

The five ship-lengths to the borehole were swiftly put behind them and the Battlestar soon found herself in the open and free to navigate.

“Navigation, plot us a low visibility course to Poseidon's Trident. Engineering, bring the primary thrusters on-line.”

“Course plotted. Start us off on 2-9-5 karom minus 1-5.”

“Main thrusters on-line. Recommend not to exceed sixty percent thrust until after bulkheads are restored at the FTL coils.”

“Helm. 2-9-5 karom minus 1-5 at thirty percent. Comm, thank Deputy Director Smythe for the hospitality then contact Trident Base and give our ETA as three hours.”

The eight great engines at the rear lit, their blue-white glow briefly out illuminating the system's star on the surface of Hades' Hope. Quickly, the massive ship accelerated then disappeared into the dust clouds surrounding Gamma Cyrannus.

“Sheryl,” Ryx glanced at her sideways as Hades' Hope faded behind them on the DRADIS. “Action Stations drill.”

The Colonel's hand slammed down on the alert klaxon almost before the Commander stopped speaking. _“Action Stations! Action Stations! Set condition one throughout the ship! Action Stations! Action Stations!”_

**Gamma Cyrannus – Hart Belt**

**Morning – Day Six After the Attack**

Hades' Chest FTL arrival flash was made even brighter by the annihilation of over a ton of dust particles that were scattered through the space in which the asteroid base arrived. Immediately upon arriving a swarm of liners and freighters departed from the bore followed by the impressive length of the agro ship ARKIPELAGO. The ships each making their way towards different destinations based on instructions issued from the Hades' Chest Directorate.

With GC497 having been turned over to the fleet and renamed Poseidon's Trident and Hades' Hope activated, it had been decided to name each of the remaining twelve asteroid mines for one of the Colonies and to initially populate them with people from that same colony. Jack felt that by doing so it would help to preserve the culture of each of the worlds.

It was therefore also important to carefully select which rock became which colony. New Aerilon would have the most farming biospheres created, ARKIPELAGO was already angling off toward that particular destination. New Aquaria would be dedicated to aquiculture and would also need extensive space carved out to create the sealed seas. New Scorpio was going to be dedicated to ship-building and was assigned to the facility best configured for the creation of the necessary factories. New Caprica would initially be focusing on high technology. Each of the other Colonies would also have its particular niche, but to begin with, the populations of each needed to be rescued.

All of the rocks that had been turned into Colonies were stony type asteroids. Prospectors and miners quickly scattered through the Hart Belt seeking out various other types. Mining operations were quickly set up on several nearby chondrites to extract water and organics with which to set up the base for the farming biospheres and to increase their water stocks. The New Tauron and New Canceron Colonies were going to be for heavy industry. Prospectors were already towing small metal rich asteroids towards them.

Unfortunately, the radiation environment surrounding Gamma Cyrannus meant that there was no tylium to be had in the system. Luckily, so far their stocks were holding and the number of tankers found and drained into the Colonies' tanks gave them enough for near-term planned operations. Long-term plans, though were going to require more. A lot more.

As the fleet scattered from the Chest, one final ship slipped out the borehole. The Marinestar NOVARAY. Due to damage sustained in the attack she was unable to participate in recovery operations and, in spite of the efforts of the people of Hades' Chest she still needed significant work. But she was more than capable of transporting the remaining fleet personnel, Admiral Uri and Director Smythe to Trident Base.

Directed to the last open repair dock, the base workers were swarming aboard almost before the passengers had disembarked. After-all, the Marinestars KELSO, NOVARAY, and QUIGLEY were going to be critical in getting large numbers of survivors off the twelve works quickly.

**Poseidon's Trident**

**Early Afternoon - Six Days After the Attack**

Sue Clifford glanced around the cafeteria at the other Scorpio Yard Apes who had been plucked off the piece of the station that was now slowly falling toward the system's primary. Except for a small crew that was now coming over on the PHOENIX, the majority of the rescued shipyard workers had relocated to Poseidon's Trident before the MONBADE's first return trip to the Boneyard.

Since that time she had been working non-stop, first getting the repair cradle she was assigned to operational and then tearing into the two damaged Gunstars that were docked there so that they could start rebuilding the mangled sections. Now, though, the entire yard gang and pretty much every available maintenance tech recovered from a ship were crowding this largest of the base's dinning facilities.

Seeing Frank Woodwright, her former supervisor exit from one of the food queues, she waved him over. Steering his way through the crowd, he finally slid into the open seat. “Sue.”

“Frank,” she replied. “Where have you been working?”

“Decom bays. We're just about ready to light off one of the two Gunstars' main powerplant. Problem is that particular ship is the more stripped of the two. We're going to scavenge the STRIFE to get her refitted, it will take longer to repair her than reactivate the two from the Boneyard. Things are testing out well, hopefully we won't have to re-pull any of the major control runs. Still, it's going to take at least a month of round the clock shifts. You?”

“Pretty much the same. My bay has the next two most damaged of the four that came in with the STRIFE. Assuming we can get or make the parts necessary we should get those two up in about the same time-frame as your decom.”

“Well, we're sure not getting them ready on that schedule if the entire yard team and guests are in here and not out there cranking wrenches. Wonder what the brass has up their sleeves today.”

Sue could hear the unspoken 'half-baked idea' dropped from the middle of Frank's last sentence.

While they were chatting, the last of the crowds moved through the service lines and took their seats. Near the front of the high ceilinged room, on a platform raised to be visible to the two thousand present a rather stick-like figure stood up. He was wearing dark slacks and a beige jacket. As he stood the lights in the room dimmed and those over the platform brightened.

“Six days ago, everything changed,” the man's deep voice did not seem to fit his appearance. “Six days ago humans, us, WE became an endangered species. The sins of our collective past came back on us with a vengeance. We once numbered nearly fifty billion across twelve planets in four star systems. Today we estimate that there are at best fifteen million left spread across those same now barren, irradiated and dying worlds.

“The Colonies of Man are no more.” The man's words echoed over the silence of the room.

“No, let me rephrase that. The Colonies of Man as we KNEW them are no more. But WE are still here! Five. Hundred! THOUSAND OF US. ARE. STILL. HERE!

“The Colonies of Man still exist in each of us! Most of you have probably already guessed, but my name is Jack Smythe and I am the Director of Hades' Chest. For nearly forty years the unified Colonial Government has called my people Pirates.

“PIRATES!

“Well me hearties six days ago this Colony Administrator decided that being a pirate was a pretty good thing. Six days ago,” Jack waved to the uniformed men sitting at the table beside him. “Admiral Uri, Commander Newfield and myself committed ourselves to a plan.

“We are going to BE pirates. And as PIRATES, WE are going to steal those fifteen MILLION living, breathing human beings from under the Cylon's noses!

“But where are we going to put that many people? Right HERE! In this system there are currently fifteen asteroids that have been bore-mined to various extents. These rocks can be prepared to house our people.

“But more than that, we can use these rocks to LEAVE THE CYLONS BEHIND!

“To do that, we have to fit out each of them like Hades' Chest. That means power plants and jump coils and lots of them. For the last six days, while we have been rescuing every possible survivor from the remains of the Colonial Fleet, we have also been mapping out every battle site. Every wreck, every disabled ship. Commander Newfield has put together a plan. One that will not only net us every usable jump engine left but the supplies necessary to rebuild a fleet to help us steal those fifteen MILLION souls who are counting on US to be PIRATES for THEM!

“The mission will NOT be safe! You will be living on ticking timebombs with the strong possibility of discovery by the Cylons. But if we succeed. WHEN YOU SUCCEED, then our real work can begin!

“This mission is volunteer only. If you want in, see one of the Majors stationed around the edge of the room.

“We CAN do this and we WILL do this!”

Sue glanced over at Frank. Director Smythe had shoved cold, painful facts in their faces. Over 99% of humanity was gone, but being a people was not about numbers. It was about spirit and the will to fight when everything else said fighting was useless. It was about finding a different way to fight. Just as hard, just as vicious in its own way.

A hard smile graced her features and Frank returned it. They were both volunteering, for her it was a foregone conclusion. With him she could see it in the set of his shoulders and the lines of his forehead. The Cylons thought that because they had a little computer trick up their sleeve and got in a nice sucker punch that they were going to win. Well so long as people continued to exist, the Cylons would lose. Because the Gods damned Toasters had no idea, not even a concept of an idea as to exactly how they had changed the game.

It would start by the survivors stealing the wrecks from the battle sites.

Those dead ships would rise and spirit them away from their enemies.

“Hail the dead,” Sue whispered a half remembered phrase from her childhood on Leonis. Something said at every remembrance event. Something that she had never understood. Until today. “Hail the victorious dead.”

Frank's eyes snapped to hers. “What?”

“Hail the Victorious Dead,” Sue stated firmly, her mind filled with a vision of ghostly ships rising from the wreckage of Picon and Virgon, Aquaria and Caprica. From the ashes of Gemenon and Aerilon and Sagitaron and Canceron. Riding the flaming pyre of Libran and Tauron and Scorpia and Leonis.

Carrying the spirit of their people, HER people out to the stars.

Frank nodded, somehow sensing what she was seeing. “Hail The Victorious Dead,” he answered a bit more loudly.

Someone at the next table said “Yeah,” then shouted “HAIL THE VICTORIOUS DEAD!”

Sue and Frank both stood up from their table and shouted it back “HAIL THE VICTORIOUS DEAD!”

And it spread to more tables until the entire room were on their feet shouting it and the very rock was rumbling with it.

“HAIL THE VICTORIOUS DEAD!”

“HAIL THE VICTORIOUS DEAD!” 

“HAIL THE VICTORIOUS DEAD!”


	6. Chapter 5

**Battlestar PHOENIX – Gamma Cyrannus System**

**Late Morning - 12 Days After the Attack**

“Jump complete,” the Navigation Officer reported.

“DRADIS contact starboard,” the ship's Tactical Officer reported. “Distance ten klicks at 101 degrees karom plus 20.”

“All starboard batteries engaging target,” the Gunnery Captain called. “Heavy batteries engaging center mass, medium batteries engaging designated ancillary targets.”

“Flack barrier established at 1000 meters,” the Weapons Officer responsible for ship's defense called out.

“Primary jump coils charging 2min 20 seconds. Secondary jump coils charging 5 minutes. Heat sinks holding good for at least four more rapid jumps.” The engineering officer on bridge duty announced.

“Solid hits on all targets,” Colonel Adams, the Executive Officer reported. 

The navigator, Captain Alexander Holland announced from his board. “Jump calculation to target five complete.”

“Ready starboard side missile battery,” the XO ordered per the established battle plan.

“Nuclear launch authorized,” Commander Ryx ordered. “Spin up one nuke for the wave.”

Walking his way around the PHOENIX's CIC, Admiral Gandalf Uri carefully noted the ebb and flow of the information. “Cease fire! Well done people. Four jumps, four targets in under 10 minutes. THAT is what a properly run Mercury Class is supposed to be doing!”

All through the last six days, while the Trident Base Yard Apes and her own engineering department had been stripping out and replacing the FTL system, the rest of the crew had been running combat simulations and action station drills.

Every single member of the crew had their previous ship shot out from under them due to the Cylon's sucker punch. Every single one of them was pissed off that they did not get to fight back because of the hack. Now they had just run a live fire exercise simulating an attack against four separate targets and exceeded fleet standards for their class, all while doing it with the ships networks disabled.

To date, the Cylons had not actually fought against a fully capable modern Colonial ship of the line. That was about to change.

Commander Ryx picked up the handset while toggling the ship-wide annunciator system. “All hands, Admiral Uri says well done! Gunnery captains, police your mounts then stand down your crews. Action review and battery hit analysis reports are due by fifteen-thirty.”

Putting down the handset she turned to her navigator. “Mr. Holland, plot us a jump back to Trident Base.”

“Aye ma'am.”

**Corman Command Center – Trident Base**

**Mid-Afternoon – 12 Days After the Attack**

Director Smythe, Admiral Uri and Commanders Newfield, Ryx, Montgomery and Bellamy gathered in the recently outfitted conference room in the new Fleet Command Center.

“So,” Jack said as everyone settled around the table. “PHOENIX got to stretch her legs this morning. Did everything go well?”

Ryx glanced toward the Admiral who cleared his throat. “The exercise went very well actually. Usually full work-ups for a new ship's crew can take several months, but Commander Ryx has done a stellar job preparing her people while the ship was being repaired and resupplied.”

Arianne nodded. “It helps tremendously that we were able to take units wholesale from rescued personnel instead of putting together scratch crews at every level. Virtually my entire engineering department is from the ZEUS, each of my gun crews came complete from one ship or another. These people are used to working together already and maximizing the results for their teams. This team maximization is what usually takes the longest time during workups. I do have concerns about the deck gang and the fighter squadrons, but even there, we've managed to keep coherent units together as much as possible.”

“Our ad-hoc Gunstar crews were able to do much the same,” Commander Newfield added. “The Colonels in charge took a similar philosophy, grabbing crew who were coherent units with experience on the type if not the class. We do not expect this to hold true after the PHOENIX because we don't currently have that many ships on which the crews can maintain their skills. This will mean as we get the decoms up and running, their workup times will move more toward the pre-attack standards.”

“Excellent,” the Director replied. “In two days we make our first major raid, pulling the usable wrecks from the Picon battlefield. The Cylons are patrolling the site too often for us to power up some of the disabled craft so the MONBADE will be doing a scoop on one of the Battlestar hulks. Several smaller ships have either been stuffed in landing pods or docked to the ports on the larger ships that can jump. The thing is, we really do not want the Cylons to catch on to what we're doing or getting the other sites cleared will become impossible.”

Cory Newfield toggled a switch that brought up a DRADIS still of the Picon site. “As part of our masking operation, we will be detonating all of the nuclear stocks remaining in the bow of the ZEUS as soon as the last ship has cleared the battlefield. This should disguise the fact that ships are missing due to the detonation and spreading debris from the explosion. We hope to fool the Cylons into believing in a timed scuttling charge being the cause.”

Commander Montgomery leaned forward in his chair. “But if they look closely, they'll see that the mass of the field doesn't equal the ship count, so how do we keep them from looking?”

“We attack,” Commander Ryx stated. “While they're responding to our active fleet units, we get what we need from the battlefields.

“That might work if we had more than one Cradle and could make multiple snags simultaneously, but with only one that becomes problematic,” Commander Bellamy pointed out.

“Well,” Jack input. “What if we give them something else to be looking at?” 

“Taking a page from your old pirate playbook Director?” Uri asked. 

Jack chuckled. “Being somewhere other than where folks were looking worked for us for forty years. What I have in mind is a recovery mission to the Twelve Worlds. Several of our scouting raptors have made contact with shelters, resistance groups and even organized Army and Marine formations. What if each time we execute a raid on one of the battle sites we also stage a diversionary attack, like Commander Ryx suggested and also jumped the KELSO, NOVARAY and QUIGLEY to one, or more, of these survivor groups to extract them?”

Newfield rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “A double distraction. Hiding our real efforts behind not only the attack but the civilian rescue efforts. While it may make raids on the Twelve Worlds harder in the short run, if we can get the wrecks we need we will have the material necessary to get a more powerful fleet up and running to open up future efforts.”

“Indeed,” Hyram Montgomery answered. “With the right parts available, in three months, we should be able to have the SATURN reactivated. The HEIMDAL will also be available then, though I would like to take the extra time to update her to the latest Odin Class standards. APHRODITE will take approximately five months to rebuild the structure and reconnect the two parts. An updated HEIMDAL would be ready about the same time. 

“ANUBIS is looking at a year or more. She has been so heavily stripped that I have a design team looking at possibly upgrading her systems to Mercury standards before even starting to rebuild anything else. Doing that puts her eighteen months to two years out, but she'll run rings around the RA and SATURN when she's done. 

“Other than that, we should be getting two of the damaged Gunstars back next week and the other two, plus the two decoms back two weeks further on. The last Gunstar, STRIFE is looking at three to four months to strip her structure, rebuild her spine and restore her systems. 

“Finally, all of the lightly damaged Firestars are back to being fully operational. We have four that had moderate to heavy damage that are still in work. We've been scavenging the worst of the decoms to repair them but they still have between one and two weeks. The six best of the decoms are approximately a month from availability, the rest range from two to six months depending on whether we have to make the parts from scratch or we bring in some usable materials with these raids.”

The Admiral pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and started writing. “What are our combat assets as things stand for two days from now?”

Commander Newfield pulled a sheet from his own binder, reading off the list. “Currently we have two operational Battlestars, the Mercury Class PHOENIX and the Jupiter Class RA. We have seven operational Gunstars, HATHOR, ISIS, BARGER, DUKE, IMAHARA, SCYTHE and PAN. There are twenty fully operational Firestars and the three Marinestars, KELSO, NOVARAY and QUIGLEY.

“We were also lucky that we found the 5th Replenishment Group three days ago. They jumped away from Libran as soon as the Battlestars began going off line and were hiding amongst the Ragnar Trojan Asteroids. With two Underway Replenishment Ships, two military freighters loaded with enough ammunition for a full battle group, a tylium tanker, a pair of Flattops and a half-dozen Firestar escorts, we have the ability to fully load out PHOENIX, RA and all of our supporting warships. Unfortunately, that does not leave us with much of a reserve.”

“One of the things we hope to recover from the wrecks are the ammunition production facilities of several Battlestars,” Hyram stated. “With those, we can set up a manufacturing plant here to replace our expenditures. In the meantime, PHOENIX and RA have been running their plants full out since their arrival here. RA has brought herself up to a full combat load. PHOENIX made enough to perform this morning's live fire exercise without breaching 5th RG's stocks.”

“We also have been moving any recoverable stocks from the ships we cannot take to those we are retrieving at the various sites,” Newfield added. “Depending on actual expenditures, we should be able to fully restock our forces after each raid with a comfortable margin to build up a stockpile here.”

“That said,” Commander Ryx brought the discussion back in focus, ticking off several points. “We need to determine which planet we will be sending the Marinestars to; where we will be attacking the Cylons; how long will we need to hold our line during the attack; and what are our acceptable losses, and there will be losses.”

Scratching his chin, the Admiral suggested. “Picking a particular planet ahead of time may not be possible. Even with escorts, the Marinestars would be sitting ducks for any Basestars in orbit. Our best option would be to have several choices and station pairs of Raptors at each. When the attack begins, the Cylons will hopefully pull reinforcements from one or more planetary garrisons. If that happens, then one of the Raptors reports back to the rescue fleet who then choose the most viable target. The second Raptor jumps to the attack fleet letting them know the disposition of any remaining forces at their planets. Once we draw the reinforcements then we plan a series of jumps to attack any Basestars left at particular planets, keeping the Cylons jumping around after us instead of attacking the Marinestars or looking at the battle sites.”

“What about utilizing some of the civilian liners we have in the rescue?” Smythe asked.

Bellamy shook his head. “I wouldn't recommend it at this stage. The Marinestars are capable of defending themselves from Raider attacks. Adding in civies would require them to defend them as well or pulling Firestars from the attack fleet to cover them. Lets treat these as proof of concept raids and keep the recovery element as lean as possible. Later, when we have our decoms up and running we can plan out a planetary scouring with the civilian liners.”

Commander Ryx looked up from the bare-bones of a plan that was coming together on her notepad. “What if?...”

**Rally Point Marauder – .5 LY North Helios Alpha/Beta Barycenter**

**14 Days After the Attack**

Gathered in the darkness between two sets of their former home-worlds a series of flashes announced the arrival of the Trident Fleet. A perimeter of Firestars forming followed by seven Gunstars, then two Battlestars. With them there the SAGE and three Marinestars flared into existence behind the Battlestars. Finally, the MONBADE jumped in behind the transports.

Aboard the RA, Admiral Uri moved around the Flag Plot table. He would fight the fleet while Commander Bellamy fought the ship. As such he had a dedicated facility immediately aft of CIC with its own DRADIS tree and communications consoles.

“Per the schedule reported by the Picon team, the patrol Raider is due in twenty minutes. Intelligence reports that there are currently two Basestars at every Colony. Launch Raptor teams to confirm.”

Outside the ship, Twelve of the small attack craft left the pods of the RA.

In fifteen minutes the Raptors from Gemenon jumped back with details of the Cylon Basestars location and orbit.

Admiral Uri looked at the clock. “Sparks, put me through to the fleet.”

o-=\\_/=-o

Aboard the PHOENIX the crew looked up as the ship-wide speakers crackled to life. _“People of the Trident Fleet. To date we have hidden as we licked our wounds and saw to the safety of those who are now our charge. No more! Today we hit back and we make sure that the Gods Damned Toasters KNOW they have been hit. Look to your duties, trust your fellow crew to see to theirs and we will be victorious this day! We are the Trident Fleet! Hail the Victorious Dead!”_

All through the ship officers and enlisted shouted their response to last line. “HAIL THE VICTORIOUS DEAD!”

In the CIC as the feed from the Flagship cut out, Commander Ryx lifted the handset from its cradle on the plot table. _“So Say We ALL! Crew of the PHOENIX we, more than any others understand the meaning of those words. With all of our previous ships STOLEN from us we ARE the dead who WILL BE VICTORIOUS! We are the PHOENIX and from the fleet's ashes WE RISE! All stations prepare for combat! Gunnery Captains, once jumps begin you are weapons free per the fire plan provided at this morning's briefing! ACTION STATIONS!”_

“DRADIS Contact! Raptor 2-1-7-3 reports clock is running! The Admiral has ordered them to the MONBADE.”

_“Trident Fleet, this is the Admiral! Execute the attack plan!”_

In blinding flashes, Trident Fleet began its attack jumps.

**Gemenon Orbit – Helios Alpha**

**14 Days After the Attack**

Slow drifting through their orbits a pair of Basestars hovered over opposite sides of Gemenon, occasionally firing off a missile at concentrations of humans detected on the surface. In spite of the perceived totality of the opening attack's victory, there were still large numbers of humans on the planet and even organized military units protecting them. Occasionally, they would even dare launch Vipers and Raptors to attack the ground forces following up the bombardments.

In an instant, neither Cylon ship was alone.

On the dayside of the planet seven Gunstars came out of FTL twenty kilometers away firing as soon as each gun crew's systems stabilized. Many firing by bore-sight rather than wait for the DRADIS to clear. Arriving at point-blank range, the battlecruisers' shells were hitting before the Cylons could react. Firestars accompanying the Gunstars quickly established a flack barrier around the fleet and the few Raiders and Missiles launched were swiftly eliminated. 

Thirty seconds into the attack the Basestar exploded as a high explosive shell from the ISIS found its primary tylium bunker. The Light Carrier SAGE never even needed to launch any fighters.

Three Firestars and one Gunstar were hit by debris. Two of the Firestars had medium damage and were ordered to jump back to point Marauder.

o-=\\_/=-o

On the night side of Gemenon, an angry and jealous god let its presence be known as the RA announced her arrival in a similar fashion to her smaller compatriots. Once more, crew fired bore-sight shots before their primary systems were fully on-line. Scattered hits became more concentrated as the systems kicked in to fine tune the targeting.

On the massive flight decks, RA's four fighter squadrons flushed from their launch tubes in two separate waves swiftly putting a hundred and sixty Vipers into the fight to meet the five hundred dropping from the arms of the Basestar.

“Raider count three hundred and rising.”

“Radiological alarm. Nuclear ordinance detected.”

“Intensify flack field on that bearing.” Bellamy ordered.

“Raiders attempting to jump past the flack barrier. Tasking Her'ur Squadron to intercept.”

“HATHOR reports they caught the Basestar with its pants down. Toasters are scrap and their orbit is secure. Fours ships damaged, light casualties, two withdrawing to Marauder.”

Admiral Uri watched the reports update on his displays while listening to Bellamy fight the ship. “Order HATHOR to deploy her group's Raptors to the surface. If there are workable ships down there, get them loaded and airborne. Hand deliver Marauder coordinates to the pilots. HATHOR group is to then jump to a south polar position.” 

The ship shook as several missiles slipped past the flack barrier, detonating against RA's thick armor. None of them were nuclear. “Flack batteries 47 to 51 off-line. Damage control crews responding.”

“Solid hits on the core. Basestar has fires showing.”

Bellamy glanced at the video monitors. “Keep up the fire rate!”

On the Basestar a small explosion in the central core tore through the structure. Power flickered and went out throughout the ship as the two halves tore apart, the lower half tumbling into the atmosphere, breaking up as it fell from orbit. The upper half took several more hits breaking it into several pieces.

“Cease fire. Recover our squadrons and prepare to jump to a north polar position.”

“Well fought Commander,” Admiral Uri congratulated Bellamy.

**Rally Point Marauder**

**Five Minutes Into Raid**

The pair of Firestars, leaking atmosphere with crushed armor panels from their collisions with the debris arrived before the next part of the plan could be put in motion.

“Firestars HATCHET and BATTLEAXE reporting medium damage and light casualties with no fatalities. Gunstar attack was a success. MONBADE is dispatching repair teams to assist,” the communications rating reported.

Arianne nodded. PHOENIX's part of the mission was dependent upon the reactions of the Cylons. If they pulled out from the other Alpha colonies completely to attack the RA then she would jump to Gemenon. If they pulled out partially, then she would set a series of jumps to attack units left behind at the Alpha Colonies.

“Raptors arriving. Picon reports both Cylons jumped out. Caprica reports two have jumped out leaving one.”

“Understood. Contact KELSO, tell them they are go for Queenstown. Navigator. Get the plot from the Caprica Raptor, I want a jump that puts us ten klicks in trail of their orbit. Let HATCHET know to send any further Raptors to the RA.”

“KELSO, NOVARAY and QUIGLEY have jumped for Picon.”

“Jump plotted for Caprica.”

“MONBADE has jumped.”

Ryx picked up her handset. _“All hands, this is a combat jump. Gunnery crews make ready! XO Jump the ship!”_

**Caprica Orbit**

**Four Minutes into Raid**

“There's no information on what took out Basestar 23. They reported an attack then immediately went off line,” the Model Two reported as he held his hand in the data interface fluid. “Basestar 47 reported being under attack by the Battlestar RA before it went off line”

“RA? They're Tauron Guard. Why weren't they destroyed in the initial attack?” The Model One Cylon demanded.

“Unknown. A better question is where have they been hiding the last two weeks and what else is it with them that destroyed one of our Basestars in under thirty seconds.”

“Send both the other Basestars from Caprica and the two from Picon. Dispatch Raiders to the other Colonies and call in reinforcements from there. Lets destroy this last human annoyance.” The One sneered.

“Raiders away. Basestar's 15 and 127 have jumped for Basestar 23's last location. Basestar's 55 and 76 are jumping from Picon to Basestar 47's last position.”

“CONTACT! Mercury class close aboard!”

The Cylon warship slammed sideways under their feet as the first heavy KEW rounds slammed into the central pylon.

“Launch raiders and missiles.”

o-=\\_/=-o

A feral smile graced Sheryl Adam's face as she studied the DRADIS display. A look that was mirrored on the entire CIC crew, including the Commander. “On the money Mr. Holland! Gunnery crews are already engaging.”

“Basestar is attempting to launch raiders. Missiles inbound!”

“Extend Flack field to five thousand meters.”

A brilliant explosion flared along one of the lower arms as a high explosive medium KEW shell hit a launching raider just inside its bay. The conflagration quickly spreading to the rest of the launch bays on that arm, destroying a significant number of the Basestar's raiders and cutting power to the other weapons along that axis.

o-=\\_/=-o

Bleeding from a cut in his scalp, the Model One was furious. “WHERE THE FRACK DID THAT MERCURY COME FROM!”

Through the half-lit, smoke filled command center, other Cylons scrambled to control what little was still working on the Basestar. One of the monitors briefly cleared, showing the name emblazoned on their executioner. PHOENIX.

“That ship was supposed to be SCRAPPED!” A five growled.

“Well apparently NOT!” The One screamed back as a final explosion washed through the central core of the ship.

o-=\\_/=-o

“Basestar destroyed Ma'am!” The XO reported as the CIC crew cheered. “DRADIS! Disposition of targets around Gemenon.”

“Get the Raptors deployed to the surface,” Ryx ordered, “Reiterate hand delivery of Point Marauder coordinates to the pilots of any available ships.”

“RA and the Gunstar Fleet have moved to engage the day side pair of Basestars. The night side pair are maneuvering to pin them between the two groups.”

“Arianne,” Sheryl stood at her Commander's shoulder. “We have to expect that they'll be sending more from the other Colonies.”

“I know,” Ryx replied. “But we have to keep their attention here for at least an hour, preferably longer. RA and her group can hold their own against the two they've engaged. DRADIS, start naming targets. Tango 1 and Tango 2 are engaged with RA. Tango 3 is moving north from the night side. Tango 4 is moving south. Number any others in the order of their arrival.”

“Communication from the Admiral. Trident Fleet is pushing for the Caprica /Gemenon Barycenter.”

“Notify the Admiral that Caprica is clear and that we are continuing our attack.” Commander Ryx replied.

“Trident Actual replies 'Good Hunting'!”

“Mr. Holland, lets do this again. Ten klicks aft of Tango 4. Then the same on Tango 3, then twenty klicks aft of the RA. From here on I want continuous plots readied for our most advantageous position to each Tango with a constant plot back to the fleet. Call your department and put them to work.”

_“All hands, this is the Commander. Prepare for sequential attacks. We will be jumping fast and hitting hard. Vipers stand ready to launch after the third jump.”_

“Tango 4 jump plotted,” Captain Holland announced.

“Both FTL drives ready. Heat sinks open for rapid jumps,” the engineering officer reported.

“Gunnery crews stand ready! Jump!”

o-=\\_/=-o

Admiral Uri had ordered a wall formation centered on the RA. The Gunstars had arrayed themselves in a vertical circle around the Battlestar with the Firestars forming a double ring inside and outside the Gunstars. The SAGE in a trailing position with a ring of four Firestars for defense.

On the Admiral's order the formation advanced on the two Basestars that were pumping missiles and raiders in their direction. Waves of Vipers from the RA and SAGE charged into the space between the two fleets, each trying to knock the other out of the way. Flack batteries from the Trident Fleet forming a wall past which very few missiles or raiders made any progress.

“Hit on the BARGER, minor damage to her armor.”

“IMAHARA reports a breakdown on their primary weapons feed. Five minutes to repair.”

“Two more Basestars have appeared behind the ones we are targeting and are launching raiders.”

“SAGE is taking on damaged Vipers. Pilots are being loaded in their ready spares while repairs are attempted.

“Hits on the Basestars. They're falling back slowly.”

“Maintain our rate of advance,” Uri ordered calmly. “Keep pushing them slowly.”

“Raptor 2-3-9 reports finding a spaceport with intact ships being defended by Colonial Army units. The ships are being loaded with civilians and will do an atmospheric jump to Point Marauder. The Army General has been briefed on our plan, concurs and will work with us to accomplish future evacuations.”

“Contact twenty klicks astern. Contact is launching fighters.”

“PHOENIX actual reports scratch three, flushing tubes. No damage. No casualties. Ammo expenditures minimal.”

Eight squadrons of fresh Vipers screamed past the formation to engage the raiders, allowing those that were already there the opportunity to disengage and rearm.

“PHOENIX has jumped close outside the latest arrival.”

On the monitors, Uri watched as the Mercury Class Battlestar unloaded its entire port-side battery into the star-shaped Cylon ship, pounding it hard. But all did not go completely in PHOENIX favor as one missile slipped past her defenses, the bright light of a nuke hitting her armor whiting out that section of the monitor.

o-=\\_/=-o

“Report!”

“Nuclear hit on the port bow. Batteries one and three are off-line. Battery one reports casualties. Battery three is attempting systems reset. Flack batteries 14 through 17 off-line. Damage control and medical parties en-route to both. Minor damage from frames 30 to 33.”

“Nuclear launch order! Ready one nuke port-side.”

“Nuke ready!”

“Extend flack field and Launch port-side missiles.”

o-=\\_/=-o

Uri watched as PHOENIX's return of the nuclear favor hit the central pylon and blasted the Basestar out of existence. Moments later, PHOENIX jumped again, this time unloading her starboard batteries into the other recent arrival.

**Outside Queenstown – Picon**

**Twenty Minutes into Raid**

Coming down from orbit, the three Marinestars were able to detect the defense perimeter that the Colonial Army and Marines had erected around a fifty square mile area of rugged wilderness. Survivors of the attack had scattered through the area while the military fought a holding action against the Centurions and their skin-job handlers. Able to pick out the Toaster's lines, the three landing ships broke their formation, launching ground attack Vipers and Scimitar Bombers to harass the lines while they opened up with their ventral guns.

Like the dragons of ancient legend, lines of fire linked the three ships to the ground as they proceeded to circle the perimeter, scorching everything that moved outside the friendly lines. The perimeter secured, their small craft scattered across the area in hunter-killer groups, looking for any shiny chrome head sticking up. Raptors and shuttles then flooded from their landing bays, spreading across the planet in teams looking for any survivor groups that could be brought in.

Contact was quickly established with the Colonel in charge of the defenses and the civilians were rapidly rounded up and crowded aboard the three ships. With the nearly sixty thousand picked up, the Army and Marine group were then shuttled to a more defensible area to gather more survivors and prepare for an eventual return trip.

Escorting an additional twenty-nine packed liners and freighters, the heavily overloaded KELSO, NOVARAY, and QUIGLEY left Picon nearly an hour later with over one hundred thousand additional survivors.

**Caprica/Gemenon Barycenter**

**One Hour into Raid**

Admiral Uri had achieved his goal in creating a meeting engagement in the Caprica/Gemenon twin planet system. By rapidly destroying the two Basestars at Geminon, the Cylons had chosen to rush in reinforcements rather than pulling back and assembling a force to come and take back the space. As a result, the piecemeal arrival of the Cylon units enabled the PHOENIX to use her strengths to create one-on-one engagements while the RA and the other ships held the line, and the Cylon's attention. So far they had destroyed, disabled or forced the withdrawal of ten Basestars for the loss of two Firestars and a further four and a Gunstar withdrawn due to damage. 

At no point had the Trident Fleet faced more than four Basestars at any one time. Now Uri's wall had morphed into a sphere constantly circling the center point between the Caprican and Gemonese masses.

Commander Ryx looked up from the DRADIS where target Tango 14 had just fallen. “Jump us into formation. Our fighters should be just about dry. We'll cool the drives for a bit while we land our birds for servicing.”

“Mr. Holland, jump us inside the perimeter behind the SAGE,” the XO ordered. “Call up our birds, combat landings authorized.”

Just as the PHOENIX jumped, the Cylons pulled a page from their own playbook, jumping two Basestars in close on the RA and flushing every weapon as soon as they arrived. The fleet turned on the two with a vengeance, their combined firepower quickly destroying the two Cylon ships but at the cost of another two Firestars destroyed and one heavily damaged. Additionally three nukes made it through the defenses to the RA, two hitting on the heavily armored head and one on top of the engine block, knocking all but one of her thrusters off-line.

“Trident actual on the horn, Ma'am.”

“Admiral Uri, what's your status?”

_“Pretty rough. We can barely make way. I'm ordering the RA and ADZE to jump directly home. Take the rest of the fleet and meet up with our forces at Marauder then head home per the plan.”_

“Yes sir. We'll see you there as scheduled,” Arianne hung up the the handset. “Order all birds to immediately land on the nearest available deck.”

On the DRADIS, the RA and the heavily damaged Firestar ADZE both disappeared.

“All ships jump for Rally Point Marauder in two minutes. Firestars are to tighten the perimeter, set flack barriers at three thousand meters.”

“Birds landing on all decks. Last bird one minute out to us. SAGE is deck full. Raptor SAR teams are performing pickups and will jump directly.”

“Two more Basestars, Tango 18 and 19 at 320 karom 23 and 329 karom 19, range one hundred klicks.”

“Missile wave incoming, one minute.”

“Last bird is down. Jump in thirty seconds.”

“Order all fleet units to jump, we go last. Launch Raptor teams.”

First SAGE, then the Gunstars, then the Firestars and finally PHOENIX jumped away having destroyed a dozen of the Cylon's warships.

As a final gift, thirty Raptors jumped in and flushed all of their missiles at Basestars Tango 1 and Tango 2. Three of the Raptors were shot down by their few remaining Raiders, however very few of the missiles were stopped and both Basestars were destroyed by the nukes in the missile wave.


	7. Chapter 6

**Rally Point Marauder**

**One Hour Twenty Minutes into Raid**

PHOENIX arrived at Point Marauder to near chaos.

Forty liners and freighters had launched from Gemenon. Nearly eighty had gotten off Caprica, plus the twenty-nine from Picon, and the fleet units it was amazing there had not been any collisions as yet. The damaged warships had been too busy securing their battle damage to dedicate more than the most basic resources to coordinating the fleet and the airwaves were crammed full.

Arianne had her communications officer send out an atonal squeal over the civilian frequencies. As soon as it ended she was on the air. “This is Commander Ryx of the Battlestar PHOENIX. You will maintain RADIO SILENCE until and unless contacted by myself or a designated alternate. That is unless you want the CYLONS to find us before we can organize and get you to our destination!”

Turning to her XO, her right hand pinching the bridge of her nose. “How did we miss this? We expected a few ships, not,” her left hand waved at the monitors, “that!”

Sheryl shrugged. “Best guess is that the Cylons were using them as bait to get large groups together. Using the ships to draw survivors into the open.”

“Great. Now we have to have a plan to protect the ships on the ground for the future raids on the Colonies, because you _know_ the Toasters are going to blast them as soon as we show ourselves again. That's assuming they don't go ahead and blast any of them they already know about.”

Sheryl swore. “Frack! We're about to lose a ton of survivors if we don't react fast. We need to detail Raptors to every Colony now. The Cylons are in disarray after our attack. If we can get the civies loaded and launched anywhere their coverage is light we might just save a lot of people.”

“We can't bring them here,” Arianne replied. “These coordinates may already be compromised.”

“Point Buccaneer. Point five L-Y south of the Helios double binary barycenter.”

“Comm! Get me IMAHARA Actual. Sheryl, get the CAG organized and our and SAGE's Raptors turned for immediate launch.

“IMAHARA Actual on line.”

She swept the handset from its cradle. “Stan, Arianne. We have a major disaster to head off! What's the status of your division?”

_“Other than a brief glitch in the primary ammo lifts, we've been at 100%. SCYTHE has some inconsequential damage. PAN had to withdraw from the fight due to spreading fires, but they're now extinguished and she reports fully capable. We lost a Firestar from our group and the ADZE withdrew with the RA. What's the mission?”_

“I need you to reform your recovery group with the SAGE and get over to Point Buccaneer. We're about to dispatch Raptors to all the other colonies. There's no way this many ships survived on the three planets we hit without the Cylon's knowing about them. If that is true, how many survivors are going to die when the Cylons unfrack themselves from what we just did? Our Raptors will be hand delivering Point Buccaneer coordinates to every ship they come across. I need you to take charge of organizing everything that arrives. Keep them off the air until we can jump back with reinforcements to lead them to safe haven.”

_“Understood. We'll dispatch SAGE's Raptors to the outer colonies as soon as we've jumped. IMAHARA out.”_

Arianne took a deep breath. “Okay, lets get this clusterfrack organized. Order the damaged ships to jump back to Trident Base and have New Picon, New Gemenon and New Caprica open up for incoming survivors. Order HATHOR to gather the Gemenon group one thousand klicks north of our position and plot a direct jump to New Gemenon. Have KELSO lead the Picon contingent the same distance south and plot direct to New Picon. We'll take the Caprican horde. Mr. Holland, direct jump to the New Caprica asteroid.”

Over the next fifteen minutes the mass split into four fleets and then disappeared in multiple sparkling flashes.

**Cylon Resurrection Hub**

**14 Days After the Fall**

With a shuddering inhalation, a Model One yanked itself out of the amniotic bath that had sustained its clone prior to him uploading to the body.

“Welcome back Brother. You're on the Hub.” A Two said, handing him a large towel.

“The Hub? What the frack happened to the Resurrection Ship?”

“Overload. We apparently lost over a dozen basestars and several thousand raiders. They didn't have the resources to handle the load, so they shunted.”

“Damn, that means the Humans have probably already gotten away. I want the command crews of all those basestars in the consensus chamber within the hour. If they have to be jumped in the queue, do so.”

**Twelve Colonies of Kobol**

**14 Days After the Fall**

Over Virgon, ten Raptors from the PHOENIX jumped into high orbit to find civilian ships already lifting from the surface.

_“All ships this is Major Highwater of the Battlestar PHOENIX. We have a limited window to effect evacuations while the Cylon's reorganize from the fracking we just gave them at Gemenon. All ships are to rendezvous at the coordinates of the former civilian station where they will be provided with safe jump coordinates. Any ships not yet lifted are encouraged to wait for a full load or no remaining passengers available before departing.”_

On the surface, Emperor Justinius XV stood with his wife's hand clasped in his own as this children boarded the Imperial transport at the head of a line of children from the surrounding area. Shortly after the attacks, Jack Smythe had sent him a personal message guaranteeing the continuity of the Virgon Royal Line if he could get to Hades' Chest. The opportunity had come, yet he refused to leave so long as any of his people remained here. But his family, his children... At the top of the ramp his fifteen year old son and twelve year old daughter both turned, saluting the Flag of Virgon and then their parents.

o-=\\_/=-o

In orbit of Tauron the Raptors arrived from behind the planet's moon. Sighting the lone remaining Basestar in orbit they swiftly plotted a jump in close to the enemy carrier. Loaded for bear they immediately ripple fired all of their missiles, including the nuke each was equipped with. Forty missiles, ten of them nuclear, slammed into the unsuspecting Cylon ship cracking it in half and tumbling both pieces from orbit. The attack happening so fast the ship did not get off a single raider.

o-=\\_/=-o

All across the Colonies, carefully husbanded forces took the opportunity to go on the attack. Vipers, Scimitars and Raptors launched from hidden bases across all the worlds, attacking and driving back the Cylon ground forces. Tanks, infantry and home guard units tore into Cylon Centurions and their organic handlers. Without orbital superiority they could not stop the wave of forces the Colonials could still field at the surface.

o-=\\_/=-o

From Scorpia a group of ships lifted off from the Scorpia Dynamics production plants. The Curtis family had gathered their employees for Armistice Day celebrations at the plant. When the bombs began to fall they had retreated to shelters that had long been hidden beneath the facility. Shelters that included duplicates of all the machinery in the factories above. When the Cylons had jumped out they had called in the company ships scattered around the continent.

o-=\\_/=-o

Over Leonis, civilian ships were already gathered. Their commanders arguing over where they should try to go when the Raptors from the PHOENIX arrived. Several panicked and jumped before they could be contacted but most were relieved when the arrivals announced themselves as Colonial Fleet and were there to lead them to safety.

On the surface, General Felix Andropolis of the Royal Leonian SPace ARmored Tactical Assault Corps felt tears on his cheeks as the Raptor from the PHOENIX departed. SPARTA Corps had a new mission and hope... 

...hope was a very powerful thing.

**Poseidon's Trident – Gamma Cyrannus**

**Afternoon – 14 Days After the Fall**

“Three hundred and twenty THOUSAND?” Jack looked up from the hard-copy of the PHOENIX Commander's preliminary report.

Admiral Uri glanced at the speaker Commander Ryx's voice had been reporting from. “The number of surviving ships was unexpected. My XO speculates that the Cylons were using their existence to lure out survivor groups.”

“So it is not something we can count on moving forward, then,” Jack noted. “Still, eighty thousand Capricans, a hundred and forty thousand Gemonese and a hundred thousand Piconese is excellent news.”

“Sirs,” Commander Ryx continued. “In light of the supposition that the Cylon's were using these ships as bait, I ordered Raptors to every Colony. If the Cylon's had removed their orbital forces or weakened them sufficiently, the teams were to gather every ship they could, manually passing on Point Buccaneer coordinates for rendezvous. Hopefully we can get more survivors off before the Cylons recover from our attack and decide to take the ships and those civilians gathering to them out. I detailed the IMAHARA/SAGE group to organize any arriving ships but I need to get back out there to support them.”

Uri nodded. “Good call Commander. You have my authority to take all the undamaged ships to point Buccaneer for this mission. Get everything organized and get them back here in one piece.”

“Yes Sir! PHOENIX out.”

Admiral Uri slipped another page out of the report. “It appears that General Reinhold on Gemenon was also able to package a missile production plant and ship it out on two freighters along with the plant staff and families. They will be unloading and setting up in one of the manufacturing facilities of New Gemenon, so we should soon have an ongoing supply of missiles for restocking the fleet so long as we can establish the necessary supply chain to support them.”

“As a military resource,” Jack wondered, “why not have them set up in POSEIDON'S TRIDENT?”

“If we intend to maintain our existence as a people, then it is better that we distribute our industries,” Uri replied. “Make these truly our homes, not just mobile refugee camps. Eventually many industries, like this, will be copied at multiple sites but for now, if it comes from a particular world, lets try to maintain it at the new colony for those survivors.”

“I see that Caprica launched mostly freighters. Do we have any idea what they may have been carrying?” Jack asked.

“Not as yet,” Uri replied. “The New Caprica administrator is inventorying them as they are unloaded and will forward a manifest as soon as it is compiled.”

“We're starting to gather too many ships. I want to start having them evaluated for their usefulness in evacuation and post departure operations,” Jack said. “Large liners and freighters, basically anything that cannot land on a planet is not useful to us as ships. On the other hand, they're more likely to have FLT drives of a size that can be used in converting our new colonies or building new warships. Older ships requiring too much maintenance can be broken down for materials and parts. Lets get New Scorpia up and running next, start them with tearing down anything we can't afford to keep operational. They can start building a parts base for future construction.”

**Gamma Cyrannus – Hart Belt**

**15 Days After the Fall**

In Hades' Hope, the 5th Replenishment Group arrived to transport the stocks of munitions from the wrecks that were being broken down there. The Underway Replenishment ships FABIUS and MAXIMUS split up, FABIUS moving to dock with the remains of the ZEUS while the MAXIMUS angled towards the dock where the remains of the Battlestar ATHENA were being prepared for deconstruction.

Already, both wrecks had their tylium tanks drained into the colony's supply. The ATHENA's remaining small craft from her intact starboard pod had been transferred to Dock 8 for preliminary evaluation before transport to Trident Base. Crews were unbolting armor plate from both wrecks to begin access to their vital jump coils and the tylium reactors that powered them. It would take a minimum of sixteen coils of that class to jump the Hope, though twenty was what they were planning. Between the two Battlestars there were eight coils. Two of the Gunstar wrecks could provide four more. Then there were another six compatible coils that they were already scheduled to receive from a pair of large liners and a super-freighter. They just needed two more to get Hades' Hope fully operational.

The sixteen primary thrusters were going to be installed on the aft end of the facility bracketing the center-line as two coherent blocks. The holes had already been carved out and the crew access, mounts, fuel and control feeds were being installed. Once the armor was removed and the sections were cut free, mounting framework would be constructed on each block. The thrusters from the Gunstars and the civilian ships would be used in pairs as maneuvering thrusters around the rock.

They would not be fast but they would be able to hold station with other vessels and maneuver as necessary, if slowly.

The 5th RG's two freighters docked with the ATHENA as well where the work crews had been breaking down her manufacturing plants and crating them for transfer to Poseidon's Trident. They would be back in a few days for the plants from the ZEUS but they were in an area still exposed to vacuum and would require more careful handling to remove safely. 

**Rally Point Buccaneer**

**Twenty-Four Hours After the Raid**

It had taken nearly a full day before the Cylons began replacing the Basestars they had lost in the colonies. In that time the forces deployed had taken out an additional three Basestars that were left solo at various Colonies. It was decided that with the survivors as scattered as they were, it would do little good at this point to deploy the ships from Gamma Cyrannus for pickups. Instead, contact was made with organized resistance groups on every Colony, with plans made to start moving survivors to secure locations for later retrievals. 

Word also traveled back to the groups of the new 'Skinjob' Cylons, who were indistinguishable except for the fact that they seemed to come in multi-packs. Images of these new Cylons were immediately forwarded to Trident Base and Hades' Chest. Several were identified among the survivors and three were killed rather than be captured. Fortunately for the survivor fleet, the Cylon Resurrection system in the Colonies was so backlogged from their losses that these latest Cylons were at the back of a very long queue. It would be another two days before they were revived.

There were large groups there from the nine remaining Colonies and even three small groups formed from late lifting ships from Caprica, Gemenon and Picon. All together, a little over a million additional survivors were gathered when word was passed that the operation was being concluded. As with the operation at Point Marauder, Commander Ryx had the fleet divided by Colony and jumped directly to their new homes.

In less than a day, the population of Gamma Cyrannus had more than tripled to 1.8 million survivors.


	8. Chapter 7

**Gamma Cyrannus – New Virgon**

**20 Days After the Fall**

Fifteen year old Virgonian Crown Prince Lionel looked around his quarters. Compared to the sparse conditions of the rest of this former mine they might be considered luxurious.

What they were was boring as all Hades.

He and his sister had spent the last five days in these rooms with nothing to do. No school, no games, no visitors. Nothing. The royal staff brought them their meals each day and then moved on about their duties with robotic efficiency, like they would break if the routine were to change.

Staring blankly across the table at his sister, multitudes of thoughts ran through his head. One of them recurring over and over... What if father did not get off of Virgon?

Feeling as if his body were not his own, everything from his bones outward numb, he slowly stood. 

Elise blinked as the first new thing in days happened. 

The realization struck and Lionel changed. 

The nothingness of being an evacuee, a refugee, washed away. 

They were not here to survive. They were here to LIVE!

Billions of his father's... no... of HIS subjects were dead, but hundreds of thousands of them were not and tens of thousands of them were currently here.

Inside a rock called New Virgon.

New VIRGON! 

New HOME!

He had seen the speech Director Smythe gave where he called Hades' Hope the last functioning Colony of Man. But that wasn't exactly true. His father lived, his family lived, and so Virgon lived!

His job, his mission, his life was to prepare New Virgon for the arrival of his father that he may step into Rule here as he ruled on that dying ball four light years away. And if his father failed to arrive, then it would fall to him to shoulder that burden.

He was the Crown Prince of Virgon... No. There was no point being the Crown Prince of a dying world... He must be something else. Something more. The people of Virgon... HIS people demanded it!

Striding across the room he picked up the phone handset, dialing a number he had been given upon arrival. The connection clicked and a voice asked how they could assist him. 

“This is the Prince Regent of New Virgon. I require a meeting with the facility administrator at his earliest convenience today or no later than eight tomorrow morning. I wish to discuss the organization of this facility's populous and what plans are in place to best employ our people in ensuring the survival of the human race.”

He would rule here in his father's name until that day when either his father arrived or he had no choice but to rule in his own name. Until then his father would continue to send their people to him and he would make certain that they not only survived but that they THRIVED!

He glanced over at Elise, her mouth open and a tear slowly sliding its way down the left side of her nose. Unconsciously her back had stiffened and as he watched, her jaw closed and a look of steely resolve came over her features. She was with him, heart and soul.

They were the Prince Regent and Crown Princess of New Virgon!

Together they would make their people strong!

Together they would make their father proud!

**Gamma Cyrannus – Trident Base**

**20 Days After the Fall**

Commander Ryx's feet slammed to a stop as she rounded the corner leading from her ship's docking bay into the main corridor to the fleet command center. Taking up the entire wall panel at the end of the corridor was a brilliant splash of deep red the color of dried blood. Centered on this field was a black trident, a bone white skull superimposed on the crossbar. Arched on a ribbon across the tines were the words 'Trident Base', similarly below the skull was a mirrored ribbon reading 'Trident Fleet'. Stitched in black around and below were the words 'Hail the Victorious Dead'.

Poseidon's Trident had its new flag.

Glancing at her XO, she grinned. “Sheryl, find someone artistically inclined in the crew. I want that image incorporated into our ship's patch before we start issuing out new ones.”

“Aye Ma'am. I think I know just who to grab for that.”

The two continued down the corridor. “Good. Anything on our resupply list I should pressure Commander Montgomery about?”

“So long as that supply idiot from the last time isn't still here. We're running with half again the normal number of crew a Mercury is supposed to have, just to achieve fleet performance standards with the networks disconnected. If he tries to short us on food supplies again 'because a Mercury only needs X amount for a five day mission' I'll airlock him myself as a Cylon collaborator.”

“Considering what we pulled off of what was left of the BELPHY alone...” Ryx's mood sombered at the thoughts of her former command.

“The BELEROPHON was a good ship, Arianne. I hear that her drives are being used to get Trident herself fully operational.”

“Not that I would give up the PHOENIX now, but I do wish there had been enough of her left to put back into service.”

“Making just one of these rocks jump capable is worth ten Battlestars in my book. Every life we are able to escape from those damn Toasters with is another step away from extermination and towards ultimate victory.”

Ryx smirked. “I guess it's a good thing it only takes the jump drives from five to do it then. Otherwise you'd have us stripping the PHOENIX and RA too.”

“More like it is a good thing the MONBADE was able to grab so many more ships than our original plans called for once the Cylons fracked themselves with that piecemeal crap when we attacked Gemenon,” Sheryl countered.

“Yeah, they were stupid with a capital STU. If they had come at us all at once we would have been forced to withdraw immediately and we would never have gotten a tenth of the people off the Colonies as we did.”

Arriving at the Corman Command Center the PHOENIX's senior officers split up. Arianne to deliver her report to the base commander and Sheryl to once more engage in battle with stingy logistics ratings.

o-=\\_/=-o

“Commander Ryx, welcome back!” Hyram Montgomery leaned forward in his wheelchair to shake her hand. “How went your mission?”

“Good Commander,” she answered, settling into the chair he waved towards. “Scratch another three Basestars off the enemy's rolls.”

Montgomery just shook his head. “At this point your ship alone has accounted for more than the entire fleet did during the attack.”

“Well, there is a reason the Cylon's had to cheat and slip that virus into our networks sir. The problem is that there is only one of us really capable of that level of fight right now. RA can't handle the rapid jumping. I find myself agreeing with your plan to delay the HEIMDAL in order to upgrade her to the current standards. Our current and foreseeable operational profile is going to be heavily geared toward hit and run tactics over line of battle engagements. That's going to mean PHOENIX, APHRODITE and HEIMDAL all operating at that peak until we're ready to leave the Cyrannus Cluster.”

“So, back to our topic Commander.”

Ryx handed over a sheaf of papers and an optical disc containing a digital copy of her report. “Per the mission plan we jumped to a position on the plane and sixty degrees off axis from our current location. Once there we induced a small fault in the PHOENIX's drives allowing our course to be tracked more easily. After launching a wing of Raptors to scout Aphrodite's Veil, we then proceeded to make a series of jumps into the Colonies, where we began attacking targets of opportunity. After destroying three Cylon Basestars and damaging a further five we felt that we had done sufficient work to both gather the Cylon's attention and also give the appearance of a legitimate raid.

“We then proceeded to retreat on a different trajectory from our entrance to the Colonies. Using a series of short jumps so as to ensure that they could get a good sniff on our trail we headed on a course one-hundred and eighty degrees opposite our current location with a karom of minus sixty degrees to the plane. After four jumps we changed our heading toward Aphrodite's Veil, where we proceeded to jump just within the cloud.

“There we repaired the fault in our drives and made a series of long jumps, first along the Veil to our planned rendezvous point with the Raptors and then back toward Gamma Cyrannus. At no point after leaving the initial point in the Veil did we detect any Cylon's tracking us, so after verifying our tail was clear we jumped back here for resupply and our next mission.”

“Very well done Commander and your raptors?”

“The scout force found several nice pockets into which we can now plot direct jumps from outside the Veil. Several are very deep within. This should give us the ability to add more veracity to the impression that we are based there and not here. If we can get Hades' Chest to jump to one of those locations and act as an assault base for us we can really make the Cylon's believe it as we can minimize the chance of being found jumping between here and the Veil.”

“What about other vessels hiding there?”

“The teams had some intermittent hits on engine trails but were unable to maintain contact long enough to find the ships. This is another argument for sending Hades' Chest there. The ability to locate and gather any ships hiding in the Veil.”

“I'll forward those recommendations when I send in your report. We do know that several of the ships from Leonis were potentially heading that direction when they bolted during your followup operation. It would be nice to bring them home.”

“True. What about the Organic Cylons we captured?”

**Gamma Cyrannus – Hades' Chest**

**20 Days After the Fall**

“They're all dead,” Admiral Uri reported.

Jack Smythe's eyes widened. “All of them?”

“Radiation poisoning. Apparently the radiation has the same effect on the organics as it does on the mechanical's CMP chips.”

“What about their claiming to be able to resurrect in new bodies? Have we just given away our safe haven?”

“While it is possible, I strongly doubt it. We've gone over our records and found several more of these Organic Cylons in our morgues dating all the way back to our first arrival here. If they were resurrecting, then we would have already been attacked by now. Our experts think that the radiation is also blocking or corrupting whatever signal it is that they send. At least one of those deaths was a suicide by an Organic who had been hidden within the Fleet and she had access to all of our current locations within Gamma Cyrannus.”

Jack's shoulders sagged. “So we're safe for now.”

“I would give that a qualified maybe. We are putting procedures in place to find any future Organics before they reach here. Part of that is taking a page from your history and establishing a false presence elsewhere that we can use as an initial point for finding and eliminating these infiltrators.”

“Aphrodite's Veil,” Jack nodded. “I definitely plan to relocate Hades' Chest there soon to help support the deception. Okay, what about outfitting our various bases with FTL drives, Hawk?”

Jack's brother leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the conference table. “Currently we have enough drives on-hand to fully outfit approximately half of the former mines here in Gamma Cyrannus. Most of these rocks are actually larger than Hades' Chest and we underestimated how many coils each would need to successfully jump. Hades' Hope needs sixteen minimum. When allowing for a safety margin, that bumps up to twenty. Considering how each rock will be hosting a significant portion of our remaining population, we absolutely want that safety margin. Also, the fleet would like to double the number of coils on Poseidon's Trident so they can jump it like a fleet vessel.”

Uri nodded. “We would like to be able to jump in and recover a damaged unit quickly then jump out. The MONBADE can pick up a ship in about an hour. Poseidon's Trident could do so in a quarter of that time since the contents of the bay would not have to be docked first.”

“We'll certainly keep it in mind but priority must be on getting the rest of our Colonies jump capable. So how long before at least some of our new Colonies can jump?”

Hawk glanced at his notes. “Hades' Hope should be ready for tests in approximately a month. Thrusters installation begins next week. The first coils are also already being installed. The big part is the power, fuel and control runs to the various components. Next should be Poseidon's Trident. They too should take about a month. New Scorpio, New Caprica, New Gemenon, New Virgon and New Aerilon are all looking at eight to sixteen weeks. We are actually now looking at a shortage of trained personnel to do the installation and testing, so as each Colony Ship is finished the crews will move to the next.”

“And what can we do about our shortage of drive coils?”

“The New Scorpio Administrator approached me yesterday,” Hawk replied. “It seems that the Curtis family managed to evacuate with the entire staff of their ScorpioDynamics factory complex. They have the skilled workers but they left all their equipment behind. Thing is, they know where full sets of the factory equipment are currently stored and are lobbying for a mission to retrieve it from the bunkers underneath their current factory.”

The Admiral shook his head. “Breaking down equipment to ship it would take too long for us to defend the position.”

“Colin Curtis already has an answer to that. It seems the family never threw anything away. Every time they upgraded any equipment at the plant, the old equipment was serviced, crated and stored in the bunkers against future need. Their last round of upgrades only finished up this year, so there is a large stockpile of top of the line equipment for building FTL drive coils just sitting there for the taking. The bunkers can be opened for truck access and the Marinestars have Roll-on/Roll-off ramps for heavy armor. It should be possible to completely empty the bunker in just a few hours. With some pre-planning, the ships could be on the ground less than an hour.”

“What are our assets for an operation like this.”

“For the ground force we have approximately eight thousand marines plus whatever the Scorpio resistance can supply should we involve them.

“All of our damaged ships from the last raid have been fully repaired except for the ADZE. She has another two weeks of work to make right the damage she took. Repairs to the other damaged Firestars from before make good our losses from that battle. Within the week week we will have another six available as the first of the decoms are brought back on line. MONBADE also recovered three of the four we lost after the Cylons pulled back to regroup. While they are beyond repair we did rescue some crew and recovered much usable equipment and supplies.

“Of the Gunstars, the RAVAGE and the PLUNDER are completing crew workups after repairs. SAVAGE and DISCORD were reactivated two days ago and their crews are doing workups now. MAIM and NAIAD have been assigned commanders and are drawing their crew allotments. They should be going active this week and starting workups. We're dividing them into three separate divisions of four ships each.

“And rounding things out there's the RA, PHOENIX, light carrier SAGE and the three Marinestars.”

“So twenty-five Firestars, twelve Gunstars, two Battlestars and a Light Carrier. I am assuming here that the plan from before will not work this time,” Jack pondered.

“Unlikely. PHOENIX's raids over the last several days have shown that the Cylons have already changed their tactics. They now have a ready force of half a dozed Basestars ready to jump en-mass to the location of any attack. They are not drawing from their planetary garrison forces at all.”

“That FTL production facility is something we are going to need eventually. Take the time necessary to come up with a good plan. Something that will draw their forces away long enough to pull this off. In the meantime have the ships needing workup and crew training report to Hades' Chest within the next seventy-two hours. I'll carry them to the Veil and they can do their workups there. Let them add to the deception while doing so.”

**Gamma Cyrannus – New Virgon**

**21 Days After the Fall**

Prince Regent Lionel looked over the clothes that had been laid out for him. They were certainly not among his favorites for comfort but today appearances were of paramount importance. Briefly closing his eyes he sought and quickly found the resolve of purpose that he had embraced the day before. 

Lifting the heavily starched gray uniform blouse he slipped his arms down the sleeves, quickly buttoning it from the neck down then securing the cuffs. The shoulder boards had already been threaded with the deep purple epaulets with the gold traceries signifying his rank as Cadet General of the Royal Virgon Corps of Cadets. 

Next came the crisply pressed midnight blue slacks with their razor sharp crease and the red-gray-red cadet stripe down the seam. The white leather belt was threaded through with the white leather strap running from right hip through the left shoulder board and down his back to meet the belt again at he right hip. He then carefully knotted his white tie with the Virgonian Royal Crest emblazoned in gold hanging just below his sternum. That done it was time he stuffed his feet into the black, mirror shined boots. Finally he slipped on the bright red cadet jacket, again with purple epaulets. The large, gilded device marking his rank in the Corps of Cadets riding high on the left chest.

Taking a look in the mirror, he straightened his tie and brushed a piece of lint off the coat lapel. He would rather be wearing the official uniform of the Virgonian Royal Guard for this, but he would not be eligible for that until his 17th birthday. So for now, Cadet General would have to serve.

Stepping out of his room he was greeted by the sight of Elise standing tall and proud in her most formal gown. Its deep wine color offset by a several inch wide lavender sash draped from her left shoulder to right hip and bearing the Royal Crest over her left breast. Threaded into her elaborately simple hairdo was the light tiara she wore for official affairs of state. 

Together the two of them stepped through the door to the Royal Apartments to be met by their escort, four members of the Virgon Royal Guard and an equal number of the Corps of Cadets. Each of them dressed in their formal best and shined to their highest gleam. Resting her right hand in the crook of his offered left arm Emile let her brother lead them to their meeting with the New Virgon Administrator.

At the entrance to the Administration Complex they were met by a small crowd, including several members of the Virgon and Colonial media. Glancing at his sister, she nodded and slipped her hand free from his arm. Stepping to the front of the raised area before the crowd he raised a single hand in a calming gesture as his sister and their escort spread around him.

“Time is short and there are important things to be done. Therefore I have a brief statement, after which I have an extended meeting scheduled with Administrator Mathias so there will be no questions taken at this time.

“Subjects of Imperial Virgon! WE are NOT defeated!

“Despite their most dastardly efforts our people and our cousins on the other Colonies continue to live! Our losses are both painful and heavy yet, as Director Smythe himself said, WE! ARE! STILL! HERE!

“There is something important that I am demanding of every Virgonian today. Understand and embrace that we are NOT REFUGEES! This is NOT a camp for wretched survivors! This is NEW VIRGON and it is OUR HOME!

“Much as we deeply thank Director Jackson Smythe, his people, and Administrator Niles Mathias for this location, this home is still empty and unfinished! We have an important job to do for the THOUSANDS of our fellow subjects still struggling on our FORMER world. We must make NEW VIRGON ready for them! And in doing so we will show the others how to make their new homes ready for their kin. 

“Not a place to run to as a refuge... 

“But as a world to EMIGRATE TO.

“Therefore I, Prince Regent Lionel of the line of Vestus, do hereby call together the Grand Council, Current High Ranking Members of the Bureaucracy, Life Peers and those Holding Office, the Privy Council, Holders of Honors from the Crown, Heads of Clans or their designated heirs, those holding Royal Charters, the Council of Knights, the Chairmen and Executives of Businesses in the top 10th percentile not currently in Bankruptcy, the Senior Membership Present of All Faiths, all current or former members in good standing of the Virgonian Quorum and all current or former Governors therein.

“Said Great Council to begin meeting in two days in New Virgon facilities to be determined and announced forthwith, with the express purpose of developing a functional Government for the Virgonian People as they emigrate and take up residence here.

“My Father has charged us with preparing a place here for all of our people. There is much work to be done.

“Together let us make New Virgon a place to LIVE!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** _The speech above calling together the Grand Council is borrowed heavily from a Buffy crossover called King Xander by Tonohomike over on Twisting the Hellmouth. A story loosely inspired by the John Goodman film 'King Ralph'._
> 
> _I found the calling together of a leadership and advisory council to form a government to be highly appropriate in this scenario. I do not know where he got the sequence from or if it has a real-world equivalence as (thank the Gods) no nation has had to go through that level of destruction and reassemble itself._
> 
> _All I have after this is about half a chapter beginning the Scorpio Dynamics raid setup, A New ship/class introduction setting up the finding of a few more survivors (including possible fleet units), and the hook launching the broader long-term conflict for this story, namely the creation of the Number 1 model who will be tasked with finding and destroying the Hades' Chest survivors._
> 
> _As previously indicated, please share your thoughts with me as they could be what shakes me out of the doldrums on this story._
> 
> _Some thoughts I've toyed with:_
> 
> _-Finding fleet survivors (A heavily damaged Mercury and an extremely damaged Odin) who are converting/restoring a couple hundred year old pre-war derelict Battleship (What I'm calling a Tauron 'Potentate Class')using the remains of the Odin class battlestar while protecting a small civilian fleet in Aphrodite's Veil._
> 
> _-Just a heavily damaged, but possibly repairable Mercury class with civilian survivors._
> 
> _-A string of disabled/destroyed survivors pointing toward a pair of Gunstars pulling a Cain_
> 
> _-A genuine pirate operation (intact or abandoned) in the Veil  
> _


	9. Chapter 8

**Scorpio – Helios Delta**

**35 Days After the Fall**

Tumbling through the debris of lost Colonial ships and orbital infrastructure, both civilian and fleet, an olive and gray lump of metals and plastics drifted downward. The slow acceleration by the planet's gravity curving its arc toward the twilit zone between morning and night. A flash of reflected light bounced off of the clear, quartz crystal glass on its bug-like nose.

Carbon scoring and blasted open panels spoke to the violence of the small craft's demise. The Cylon raider making a close pass noted the sprung passenger door and the slumped bodies drifting in the doomed vessel's cabin. Quick calculations assured the piloting brain that the dead raptor would soon crash to the planet's surface, if it did not fully burn up on atmospheric entry. With an almost organic upward flip of its nose, as if in disdain, the fighter craft pulled away from the tumbling wreckage that had drifted down from the realm of the shipyard's remains.

“Damn, I thought it would never leave,” the pilot grumbled over the sound powered phones that were hard-wired into the helmets of the crew and had been physically connected to each other.

“So say we all sister,” the ships ECO replied. “Fifteen minutes to entry. Everyone stay frosty.”

For the last ten hours eight men and women had huddled in the powered down, tumbling craft. Three Marines, two professional truck drivers and Colin Curtis' eldest son, Balthazar. Balto, as he preferred to be called, was the nominal head of the current mission.

“Five minutes.”

One of the Marines reached over and pulled the door shut while the pilot and ECO both swiftly ran down the power-up checklist, bringing the Raptor's systems back to life.

“We're in the slot,” the systems engineer announced. “Everyone strap in tight, this is going to beat every ride you ever paid for at _Dionysus Park._ ”

Wisps of atmosphere began to tug at the craft's frame as it tumbled closer to the planet.

“Steady...” the pilot muttered. “Steady...”

Flickers of orange began to appear around the vessel as the random molecules of Scorpia's high atmosphere grew closer and closer together. A dull roar began to be felt and then heard through the frame.

“Releasing drogue in three... two... one!”

From the back of the ship a small rocket motor fired, dragging a thousand feet of line from the craft, terminating in a ten foot diameter, teflon coated kevlar parachute. At the speed they were falling, even this high in the atmosphere it would not last long, but it did not have to. The Raptor almost immediately flipped around and snapped its nose into its direction of travel, whipsawing those aboard with the violent motion. With its orientation of travel stabilized, the open panels all slammed shut in the slipstream.

“Drogue away,” the pilot shouted as her left hand slammed down on the release while her feet and right hand danced the controls to eliminate the craft's roll and then pitch the nose up to the proper entry angle.

Now they were burning down like a meteor along the sun-ward side of the dawn terminator, hiding the visible signs of their approach as much as possible within the early daylight.

“Uh No-Joy,” the ECO warned. “We're getting a bit toasty, care to back it down a bit?”

“But Chow-Hound, I thought you liked hot buns,” she snapped back. Still, she did brake the ship a bit further, while maintaining its ballistic entry over the Sea of Wines.

“Hey, it's no secret that I'm an ass man,” he said, grinning.

“And it's even less of a secret that the man's an ass,” the pilot casually announced to whoever might be paying attention to their banter.

Slowly they bled off more speed until the tough little ship shrugged free of its burning trail. Now No-Joy pointed their nose down and spun up their main engines. Leveling out just above the height of the reddish waves beneath them she pulled their course around to the west and punched the throttle, chasing the darkest part of the night. 

“Okay folks settle in, we've got another hour and a half to the target.”

With the small craft now limited to atmospheric speeds there was still a long way to go.

**Scoutstar ACCIPITER – Aphrodite's Veil**

**35 Days After the Fall**

Major Antony Dane stood at the back of the cockpit of his small fleet vessel. To call it a warship would be the ultimate joke. Okay, there were thirty light KEWs for anti-raider and anti-missile defense and she also was packing an even dozen missile tubes, six to each flank, but still...

Ships did not have cockpits.

Yet ACCIPITER did.

Formerly known as Colonial Heavy 4-8-9, ACCIPITER was the first of half a dozen conversions being done by the Trident Base yard dogs. The original design of the Colonial Heavy liner had been planned for potential military use. The Colonial Fleet had co-funded their development with an eye towards refitting and using them as lightly defended troop transports. 

However the ACCIPITER took that a step further. She had been fitted with a DRADIS suite and other sensors from a destroyed Gunstar. Her light Kinetic Energy Weapons, salvaged from various other fleet derelicts slotted into the pre-designed mounting points fairly quickly. The biggest modification from the conversion specs, however were the two missile batteries along either flank fitted into the adjoining forward cargo holds with the launch tubes replacing their original cargo hatches. 

This new class of vessel was intended to be the forward eyes of the forming fleet. Scouting ahead of the Colony ships and their escorts once the final departure date was set.

Still, it was a ship with a cockpit that had _windows!_

The main cargo bay had been converted to a flight deck serving a three Raptor element, giving them the ability to communicate back to headquarters while continuing to scout their current location.

Between the deck gang, small as it was; the gunnery and missile crews, heaven help if they had to actually fire; the pack of bloodhounds assigned to sensors, thank the Gods those had not shorted out the power grid; and the engineering crew, who were still trying to figure out if the second jump coil that had been installed was going to heterodyne with the original and send them so far beyond a red-line jump that they would never plot their way back; the ship now had a crew of two hundred and fifty.

And in the cockpit four of them got to stare out _fracking windows_!

Although the view of Aphrodite's Veil from here was actually... Well, frankly it sucked, the view being extremely limited as the dust that shone so brightly in such vibrant colors from afar was actually thick enough to limit light and thus visibility to no more than a couple thousand miles. Turning behind him, he took in the rest of his ship's command center. To call it a CIC would be both a joke and an insult to those noble hearts of true warships meant to go in harms way. The forward half of the first class passenger deck had been closed off, with the curtain wall between it and the cockpit having been removed. Down the center had been installed a standard fleet plot table while along both sides were placed stations for all of the ship's new functions.

Oh, and the fact that those stations provided more armor value than the hull they were installed against. Well he would not dwell on that, lest he come down with allergies and sneeze hard enough to send a ball point pen through said hull material.

Right now, Major Dane and his crew were patrolling through the Veil looking for any hints of Colonial ships that were suspected to be hiding within the clouds. They were still looking at most of a year before they would begin their true mission. Until then, the ACCIPITER's sensor suite was just what the pirate ordered, literally in this case since Director Smythe of Hades' Chest had specifically requested their assignment to the task.

Currently they were sniffing along an engine trail they had come across. Decay particles hinted that it was most likely a civilian freighter with a serious need for service on at least one of its main thrusters. The bloodhounds seemed to think it had passed this way within the last five days, so there was a chance they might catch up with it.

**Cylon Resurrection Hub**

**36 Days After the Fall**

Lydia Pyre, a model three Cylon overseeing all resurrection operations for the former Colonial space led her number four counterpart into audience with the most senior available number one known as John Cavil. While most of the organic Cylons embraced their individuality, the number one's disdain for the organic shells that they wore was most prevalent in that the majority of them regularly synchronized their downloads and maintained a uniform identity. Even those choosing different often used a variance on the same theme. Any of them could immediately step into the role of their senior with little or no loss of knowledge or efficiency.

This made them simultaneously easier and much harder to deal with. Easier in that once convinced they stayed with the plan, but harder in that they were not above using their uniformity of voice to shout down any dissenting opinions.

“Three, Four. You asked to meet?” Cavil almost growled.

The Four nodded. “We did. There have been a disturbing number of failed downloads occurring since the assault.”

“How disturbing?” The One growled.”

Lydia sank her hand into the interface fluid, mentally bringing up the number of each model failing, which nodes were receiving them and when the failures were occurring. “One hundred and three so far. None of them more than twenty percent complete.”

“And what have you been able to determine?”

“The corrupted uploads have been problematic in determining causes, but the vast majority appear to have died to some form of radiation poisoning,” Four answered. “Not entirely unexpected for sleepers and deep cover agents deployed among the humans. However, we do not understand why some are uploading fine while others are so severely corrupted as to be unrecoverable.”

“So find out,” the One snapped.

“We intend to,” Lydia answered sharply. “But we require your agreement and cooperation to do so.”

“And why is it that you cannot do this without me?” Cavil sneered.

“The largest group we have, twenty-nine of them, are Model Ones. In an attempt to recover more data to identify the cause, we wish to overlay all of those identities onto a single template. We believe that the active, your active mind will be able to help sort out the fragmented memories into a coherent whole that will allow us to identify the cause and correct for it.”

Cavil's eyes narrowed as he stuck his own hand in the interface medium. A moment later, one of his copies came through the door. “Ivan, go with this Three and Four to the Resurrection Hub. They will explain their problem and what they need of you.”

“By your command, Brother.”

**Outskirts of Celeste – Scorpia**

**36 Days After the Fall**

“It looks quiet.” Balto Curtis whispered as he slowly scanned across the grounds of the ScorpioDynamics factory. He was using the high-resolution monocular system mounted to his combat helmet. An integral part of the armor the Marines had kitted him out with during the last hours of the insertion.

Beside him, a young, dark-skinned woman nodded. “It has been. We had a few survivors who had holed up in the cafeteria for a while. Locals who were too late to catch the ships out. We moved them to our rally point along with the remaining food stocks a couple weeks back.”

One of the Marines, a Corporal, cast a glance toward the Scorpian resistance fighter. “Toaster patrols?”

“Every forty-six hours a foot patrol sweeps the grounds with aerial overwatch. We always assume they have the full sensor suite going and make sure none of our positions emits anything from thermal through thesium radiation.”

“Thesium?” The other Marine asked. The third had hung back at their base camp with the truck drivers.

“Easier to say that than Thesarusium. A couple idiots we picked up at Celeste Collegium got caught with their pants down arguing over a fracking triple word score instead of watching their sector.” Before the Cylon attack, Elise Baker had held no love for know-it-all fools. Since then, she had just as soon shoot them, if it were not a waste of vital ammunition. “Damn lucky it was our patrol that was the one who snuck up on them and not the gods damned toasters!”

“Okay,” the Corporal gestured back further into the treeline. “Lets pitch the thermal cover in that patch of scrub and get dug in. I want us to monitor at least three patrol cycles before we move around to the shelter access. Let's make sure they're not setting up shop inside before we move in.”

**Scoutstar ACCIPITER – Aphrodite's Veil**

**39 Days After the Fall**

“Particle density increasing,” the DRADIS watch reported. “Now reading four times average veil density. Engine trail leads directly through the thickest portion.”

“Looks like we're about to breach into a clearing,” Captain Katerin Wrex, the ACCIPITER's Executive Officer observed.

Major Dane glanced forward, through the gods' blessed windows and nodded. “Helm, reduce our speed by two thirds and prepare for crash stop. Sensors switch to passive scanning, shut down the active DRADIS. Navigation, I want a live plot to Chest three loaded. XO set condition one and warm up the defense grid.”

“Reducing speed by two thirds Aye!”

“Active DRADIS off!”

“Jump plot to Chest location three loaded!”

_“All hands Battlestations! Set condition one throughout the ship. Battlestations! Set condition one!”_

Antony smiled. Say what you will about the cobbled together nature of his command, the crew was pure fleet and acted like it. “Okay, sensors keep calling out the particle density. Helm cut our speed by half every time the density doubles. I don't want more than the very tip of our nose poking out of this cloud when we hit the edge.”

The DRADIS screen flickered briefly.

“Corporal Jonas, report.”

“Energy spike, Sir. The signature is heavily distorted. We're analyzing it, but best guess is an active DRADIS sweep.”

“Helm! Crash stop!”

The steady rumble of the ship's thrusters suddenly jumped several octaves as the crew lurched forward. “Crash stop Aye! Zero relative motion to local cloud!”

“Thoughts Kate?” Dane stared at the ceiling mounted repeater screen hanging over the plot table.

“We've been tracking a ship, possibly civilian, definitely with an out of tune thruster. All indications are we're approaching a clearing. I'd say we're looking at one of three things. It's either Fleet elements gathering survivors, a privateer doing something similar...”

“...Or a Cylon trap.”

The DRADIS flickered again.

“Definitely a DRADIS sweep,” Jonas reported. “Still too distorted to get a signature.”

Tony's XO nodded. “Or a Cylon trap. Of course, out here, that trap would be for civilian ships.”

“Not necessarily. All our raids are now routed through the Veil. They could be out here searching for our fleet base.”

“True, but the method here doesn't fit,” Kate rubbed her chin. “It's more likely that they would be lying in wait for civilian ships. If they were after fleet units, they would be sniffing around and following our trails instead of staking out clearings.”

For a third time, the display fuzzed into static then cleared.

“Still no specific signature,” Corporal Jonas reported. “However the sweep rate is within point five percent for a Colonial Fleet heavy unit similar to what we carry. Power levels are wildly variable but may indicate a Gunstar or perhaps a Battlestar class.”

Dane strolled forward to stand behind the helm station, staring out the window. “So either a friendly or a sneaky as Hades Cylon bastard.”

The XO traced a finger along the plot of the engine trace they had been following. “Either way, it is our mission to find out.”

Taking a deep breath, the Major turned, sweeping his eyes over the crew, all busy at their stations. With a satisfied grin, he stepped back to the plot table.

Kate stiffened to attention across the table from him. “Orders Commander?”

“We're a Scoutstar. As you said, it is our mission to find out. Helm! Ahead slow. Find me the edge of this cloud so we can stick our nose in this clearing.”

“Ahead slow,” the helmsman answered.

“Mr. Jonas, keep working that signal.”

Over the next several hours, the ACCIPITER crept through the ever thickening cloud of stardust. The engine trail they were following occasionally leading through areas where the dust was thick enough to show the physical passage of a large object through it.

“Looks like our trail was left by something only about three times our size. Call it a medium freighter or a large liner,” Kate commented. “Between the energy decay of the trail and the size of the holes she punched, it is unlikely she's a Fleet unit.”

“Well, that rules out our friend with the active DRADIS then,” Tony replied. “Jonas?”

“Definitely a Fleet heavy unit, Commander. I'd say it's a Battlestar, but the power curve is wrong. Now that we have clearer readings through the distortion, it's barely emitting more than a Firestar would.”

“A captured unit cobbled to a Cylons ship?” Tony asked.

“Too much effort for too little payoff,” Kate replied. “I'm thinking a wounded arrow.”

“Particle density down by half in the last 100 miles!” One of the sensor techs sang out.

“Helm, status?”

“Still ahead slow, Sir. Visibility does appear to be improving.”

“Maintain current disposition. Be ready to bring us to a halt as soon as visibility opens up.”

“Aye sir.”

“Launch a Raptor?” Kate asked.

“No, this soup is worse for them than it is for us. We at least have the computing horsepower to plot a jump from inertial guidance.”

“COMMANDER! HOLY FRACK! EMERGENCY STOP! EMERGENCY STOP!”

Major Dane spun in place at the Navigator's yell as the deck lunged beneath him thanks to the Helmsman's immediate reaction. He then froze, staring out the cockpit windows at the massive prow of a Mercury class Battlestar. Said prow inverted relative to his own ship's orientation and far, FAR too close to said windows for any degree of comfort. Especially as the forward-most main battery turret lifted and turned, one of its extremely large barrels pointing directly through the previously mentioned window.

_“Unidentified vessel this is the Battlestar GOLDEN HIND. Identify yourself or be fired upon!”_

Tony swore he could see the glint of light reflecting off the tip of the armor piercing shell seated in the cannon's breach. 

Fracking windows!


	10. Chapter 9

**Trident Base – Poseidon’s Trident**

**39 Days After the Fall**

Commander Hyram Montgomery rolled his wheelchair up behind his desk. Two hours of physical therapy had left him wiped out, but at least he was now out of the casts and could actually work on getting back into some semblance of shape.

Pulling out his notes from the last brainstorming session on how to acquire the Scorpio Dynamics production equipment he commenced to reading through the various ideas. The problem always boiled down to the available forces. They were still months from bringing any additional Battlestars online. HEIMDAL could maybe be ready in another six or seven weeks, though only as part of a line of battle, which the Odin Class was never designed for. APHRODITE still needed five months for her rebuilding, SATURN needed far too much work, and ANUBIS was an empty...

An empty shell...

An... empty... shell...

Signing into his computer, he quickly brought up the inventory of munitions that had been recovered from the various battle sites and also had been collected from the in-transit freighters they had recovered.

“FRACK that's a lot of missiles.”

Somehow they had managed to acquire not only dozens to hundreds of reloads for every type of ship mounted launcher but they also had literally thousands of surface to air and surface to space missiles with their launchers that were being shipped to various home guard units due to a recent Colonial Army reduction in force. All of this on top of the production facilities that were coming on-line in several of the colony rocks now.

“It doesn't have to be a Battlestar,” he mused. “Yet.”

Pulling out the latest survey reports on the ANUBIS he flipped to the structural survey section and began to smile. Sub-light drives were not so great, but they currently had thrusters to spare from both the collected wrecks and the decommissioned civilian craft. Thanks to the team from the PHOENIX he already knew how fast the FTL work could get done.

“Five weeks. Yes, give me five weeks.”

Pounding away at his keyboard, Commander Montgomery sent off a request to meet with Admiral Uri.

**Scoutstar ACCIPITER – Aphrodite's Veil**

**39 Days After the Fall**

Major Antony Dane stared out the cockpit window of his first command, straight down the barrel of the largest gun the Colonial Fleet armory produced. A barrel that was tracking their minor drift relative to the behemoth looming out of the darkness. A barrel that had a slight glint of light at the far end of it that could only be the interior lights of the ACCIPITER's command deck reflecting off the pointy end of the loaded High Explosive Armor Piercing shell.

Light that would not be able to reflect if it were not for the gods be damned windows!

He moved his head slightly and the light disappeared. When he moved it back, it reappeared. Slowly he turned, noting the light that pointed at an angle down at the plot table that was on a line with his head and the reflection.

“Petty Officer Weaver. Please answer their challenge with the appropriate codes and request to to speak Actual to Actual.” Tony was somewhat impressed that his voice did not break while issuing that order.

While he waited for communications to be established he studied what he could see of the ship facing them. Much of it was still cloaked in the darkness of the dust cloud but something seemed to twinge at him as his eyes followed the visible lines. Clear signs of battle damage traced great rents and craters across the armor of the beast. As his eyes flowed across to port along the inverted dorsal lines of the main hull, the edges faded out much closer than it seemed they should. To starboard there was a scattering of lights that must be the upper front edge of the port flight pod before it too faded out.

“Commander, I have GOLDEN HIND Actual on the line for you.”

“Thanks Sparks. Transfer it to the Plot.” Tony moved back to the table under the DRADIS tree and picked up a handset. “GOLDEN HIND Actual, this is ACCIPITER Actual. Major Anthony Dane.”

_“ACCIPITER Actual, GOLDEN HIND Actual. Major Russ Alexandros. I have received your codes but must request clarification. We have no record of either your vessel or of the Trident Fleet you reference.”_

“I understand Major. I have a detailed hardcopy briefing packet available for delivery to your hand. I can have one of my Raptor's courier it over or, if you prefer, one of yours can come over and make the pick-up.”

_“Negative on the pickup ACCIPITER. GOLDEN HIND currently has zero flight capability. Your Raptor will need to dock to Dorsal Port Four.”_

“Affirmative GOLDEN HIND. No flight capability. My Raptor will dock your port Dorsal Four. Expect a flight crew, two Marines, my Chief Engineer and Myself in one hour.”

Out the window, Tony saw a small area a hundred feet to the right of the big gun that was still aimed down their throat light up.

_“Understood ACCIPITER. Party of six at Port 4 in one hour. Please take up escort two position relative and follow us in. GOLDEN HIND Actual out.”_

“GOLDEN HIND, escort two and follow you in. ACCIPITER Actual Out.”

Light coming through the cockpit began to shift as the battered Mercury Class Battlestar started to rotate to point back into the clearing that was still invisible through its border wall of dust.

“Helm, put us two klicks off their port beam and match their course and speed.”

“Two klicks off GOLDEN HIND's port beam and hold station with them aye.”

“Fraaaaack.” Captain Wrex's drawn out expletive drew his attention.

When Tony looked, he knew why the Battlestar had reported zero flight capability. Her entire starboard flight pod was gone and the starboard thrusters were crushed mounds of scrap metal. As the turn continued and the ACCIPITER moved itself into the escort two position, the port side of the ship came into view. The only thing better about this side was that three of the four thrusters were working and the fourth at least looked repairable. The flight pod was more hole than whole, with only the first two-hundred feet of the upper bay appearing even close to intact. Even so desperately wounded, the Battlestar still carried herself with a grace of movement that belied her state. As the Scoutstar slid out to the two klick mark, the Battlestar faded to an indistinct figure in the cloud.

“Sensors. Active DRADIS in low-power navigation mode. XO. Set me up a Raptor for skids up in forty five minutes. I want both Marines, the flight crew, the Chief Engineer and yourself in the flight ready room for the briefing in fifteen.”

**Gamma Cyrannus – New Virgon**

**39 Days After the Fall**

Fifteen year old Prince Regent Lionel leaned back in his chair, the bones along his spine cracking as he did so. Eighteen days since his speech. Eighteen days since he realized that he needed to step forward and lead or his people would wither away into an empty husk of who they once were.

Eighteen of the most exciting and simultaneously boring days he had ever experienced.

And now, after nearly three weeks of arguments, pleas, impassioned screaming, three fistfights and even one all out brawl. It was done.

All he had to do was sign his name to the document in front of him, along with the Colony Administrator Niles Mathias, Admiral Gandolf Uri, and Director Jackson Smythe. Four names penned to a piece of paper.

Four signatures and New Virgon would be the first of the asteroid colonies to get a formal government.

Colony services would remain the auspices of the Colony Administration. A professional agency whose purpose would be to maintain the ability of New Virgon to support its population through the coming exodus. The CA would have a small Marine security force to protect critical infrastructure but would otherwise hand over any policing duties to the civilian government.

Lionel's government would be a Constitutional Monarchy, with a bicameral legislature consisting initially of a Citizen's House with one legislator for every twenty-five thousand citizens and a House of Union with representatives elected from each major profession. To be eligible for office in the Citizens House, one had to be of age to vote and also have participated in at least four consecutive elections as a voter. Of course this requirement would be waived until the fourth consecutive election after establishment.

The Citizen's House would define the initial professions for the House of Union and in future would be able to add new professions by a two-thirds vote in favor. Members of the House of Union would be required to have at least 10 years in their field to be eligible for election.

Lionel himself, or his father upon arrival, would have veto power over any legislation, though the two houses could override the veto with a two-thirds majority vote. The Monarch would be able to directly propose legislation to both Houses for consideration, the first of which would be the initial List of Professions agreed upon in the negotiations for the House of Union.

New Virgon would also have its own judiciary to both interpret the laws and to sit in judgment of violations of the same. Said Judiciary, like the New Virgon government itself, to be subservient to any reconstituted Colonies of Man government and Judiciary.

Director Smythe wasn't thrilled with that aspect, but he understood. After forty years, the average citizen expected there to be a unified colonial government. Besides, as things currently stood, by virtue of the actions the Director of Hades' Chest had taken to ensure the people's survival, Jack Smythe was that unified government.

The ancient tales of Atlas came to mind as Lionel picked up his pen. As he put his name down in blood red ink he felt the weight of a world come to rest on his shoulders.

Education, security, jobs, housing, food, fiscal policy, emigration, imports, exports, taxes, welfare, entertainment, communication, diplomacy... Without letting out the groan he felt deep in his gut he pondered... 'What have I just done.'

**Scoutstar ACCIPITER – Aphrodite's Veil**

**39 Days After the Fall**

Raptor 4-1-7 was one of the older Raptors put back into service from those on board the IMLAY. The Mark Three Raptor was nearly thirty years old and had last been updated over a decade before. In spite of this, the rugged assault transport smoothly lifted off the deck and slipped out the hatch to ACCIPITER's combined landing/service bay on schedule.

A very short flight later and the visiting crew from the Scoutstar were docked to the number four port atop the wounded beast of a Battlestar. Once the pilot and the dock control operator both confirmed that their boards were green, the junior of the two Marines aboard lifted the deck hatch-cover and secured it to the Raptor's aft bulkhead. Next he undogged the actual hatch, raising and securing it to the deck-cover. Two taps on the Battlestar hatch below with a hammer soon had the GOLDEN HIND's crew opening the corresponding hatches from their side. A ladder extended up, crowding the limited space in the assault transport.

At a nod from their commander, the two Marines, moments apart, hooked their insteps on the edges of the ladder and quickly slid down the side-rails to the deck below. They were soon followed by the ACCIPITER's Chief Engineer, Tony went next and would be followed by the ECO and then the Pilot.

At the base of the ladder, Tony paused. The first thing he noticed was the smell. Every ship he had ever been on had a distinct aroma. For the crew of the ship, it was the smell of home, for a knowledgeable visitor, that smell could tell a story. The ACCIPITER's smell was a mix of electronics and gun-oil with a strange under layer of foam rubber and an accumulated miasma of perfume and cologne from the former liner's passengers. He had spent a brief time on the RA, where the smell was old, damp steel and paint so thick in the air he could taste it on the back of his tongue with a good dose of human sweat, old cooking and cordite. GOLDEN HIND's smell was the acrid smell of fires recently extinguished and burned out electronics with the coppery flavor of spilled blood drifting from the struggling air vents.

Turning, he stepped up to a yellow line painted on the floor. Standing in the hatch in front of him was a weary man who was probably about his own age, but looking fifteen years older, wearing a uniform very much like a rumpled version of his own, that of a Colonial Fleet Major. Tony made note of the pilot's wings on the Major's chest and the squadron patch still on his scorched and torn sleeve.

Tony snapped off a smart salute to the GOLDEN HIND's commanding officer. “Major Antony Dane, Scoutstar ACCIPITER. Permission to come aboard?”

“Permission granted,” the other man replied, returning the salute then offering his hand to shake. “Major Russ Alexandros. Welcome aboard the 'Shiny Deer', currently the biggest damned fracking Gunstar in the fleet. Gods are we glad to see you here.”

“Every additional survivor is a gods-send, Commander,” Tony voiced his respect for the role the man was filling as he took Russ' hand. “Allow me to introduce my Chief Engineer, Captain Hank Whidbey.”

Hank was a cadaverous man. Already tall, his thin frame made him seem to stretch even higher, while his gaunt features gave the impression of a man who had not eaten in a couple months. “A pleasure to meet more survivors Major.” His voice, when he spoke was sepulchral. 

Turning, Tony took his valise from the Raptor's ECO. “If you have somewhere we can speak, I have that briefing packet for you. And while we do so, perhaps Hank can get a quick survey of your status, see if there's anything we can assist with.”

**Outskirts of Celeste – Scorpia**

**39 Days After the Fall**

Corporal Adrian Gliesmann advanced slowly down the large corridor a hundred meters beneath the Scorpia Dynamics factory. Alissa Aroyo, one of the two privates was on point, fifty meters further down the corridor with a member of the local resistance. The second Sebastian Hellas was in trail, an equal distance back from the main group, also in company with a local fighter. The main body consisted of himself, Balto Curtis, the two truck drivers, Jacob Marmon and Peter White as well as an additional four of the locals.

The group had waited for the next Cylon sweep before advancing on and entering the abandoned factory. In keeping with the immediate post-war policy, accesses to the secure bunkers beneath the facility were originally designed to be camouflaged. While recent years had seen many businesses stripping away such protections as the facilities were expanded into what was considered to be otherwise useless space, the Curtis family had not done so. Instead not only seeing that they were maintained but going so far as to set up decoys leading to false shelters that were then made to look like they had been revealed and incorporated into the factory workspace.

This foresight is what had allowed the factory staff and their families to not only survive the initial bombardments of the colony but to also successfully hide from the Cylon ground sweeps during the weeks immediately following.

Now, Corporal Gleismann's team was moving through the hidden facility that actually extended beneath the neighboring mountainside. Balto had led them off of the main corridor into a side passage that sloped upward. Exiting the hallway onto a walkway overlooking a cavernous space that was dimly lit by faintly glowing emergency lights, the group paused. Spread out before them were crates and large, tarp-covered machinery stretching far beyond the pitiful reach of their flashlights.

This is what they were here for. The equipment necessary to enable their final escape from the Cylons. According to Balthazar, at the far end of this facility was a truck-ramp leading up on the far side of the mountain to the company's spaceport. Now all they needed to do was acquire the trucks necessary to load all this equipment and get it aboard the three Marinestars... whenever they arrived.

But first, they had to do an inventory.

**Cylon Resurrection Hub**

**40 Days After the Fall**

Lydia pulled her hand out of the interface tray and looked over at Simon and Ivan as they did the same.

“The pre-merge is running brothers.”

The model four, Simon, nodded. “Sorting the incidents to prevent overlap should take about forty hours.”

Ivan shook his head. “It still will not be enough to merely lay this on an active template. The template will not know that, or even how, it needs to sort this information and merely copying mine will not work either. I suspect the two of you already knew that though.”

“It is why we approached John. Our best projection is to overlay the merged data on a prepared resurrecting stream.”

“Frack. So I get to die for the cause.”

“Not until you've internalized the changes to your cognitive processor that will enable you to merge with and sort the corrupted data.”

“Fine! I'll be in my quarters, interfacing with your program. Again.” The Model One Cylon threw up his hands in frustration and stormed out of the room.

The Four looked over at Lydia. “What about the rest of the models?”

“I had already arranged for volunteers from each of the others before we approached John.” She shook her head. “The arrogance of his line pretty much guaranteed we would require the line head issue an order for one of his copies to participate.”

Simon nodded. “So we should start setting up merges for the others now?”

Lydia yawned. “Not tonight. No sense in making a mistake because we tried to push through when tired.”

**Scoutstar ACCIPITER – Aphrodite's Veil**

**40 Days After the Fall**

Tony stood at the plot table, once again gazing out the forward windows of his command. He had been unsurprised at how reticent the Battlestar's commander was regarding any other vessels in their group. Due to the manner in which the Fleet had fallen, suspicions continued to run high against any outsiders. All Major Alexandros would commit to was bringing Tony before the leadership council that the small fleet had put together. More detailed requests for help would have to come through them. He had then spent the next several hours briefing the GOLDEN HIND's commanding officer on the Trident Fleet and Director Smythe's plan before his team had returned to the ACCIPITER. 

Whidbey had been carrying a fair-sized novel's worth of damage reports from the GOLDEN HIND's engineering and damage control teams. With his ship's limited on-hand resources, small crew, and minimal machine-shop facilities it was quickly determined that there was actually very little the ACCIPITER could do to physically assist her larger cousin.

However, that did not mean his ship's presence did not have a marked, positive impact on the status of the battered Battlestar. As had been proven time and again over the lifespan of the Colonial Fleet, the only thing faster than a ship's FTL jump was the speed at which rumor spread through a ship's crew. In the case of the GOLDEN HIND, the worn, tired, and wounded mass of humanity occupying her scorched corridors had, upon Major Dane's team's arrival, begun to spark back to life. 

Yes, they were tired. Yes, they were hurting. Yes, their ship was a shadow of what she once was. But, they now knew that they were no longer alone against the night. Word was spread that there was not just one ship, but a fleet. There was no longer just the pained hobble away from extinction. Now there was a plan to survive and build back stronger than before. Major Dane could feel it as his team had marched through the Battlestar to re-board their Raptor. The hustle in the way the repair crews were moving, the extra kick in the step of the Marine squad doing a PT run, and even the way Major Alexandros stood just that little bit straighter. The 'Shiny Deer' had a mission again.

Even now, after ten hours of pacing the larger vessel through the dust clouds, he could swear that the three working thrusters seemed to glow just that little bit stronger and the other ship moved that tiny bit more smoothly. 

Tony hoped that the Fleet council he was to meet with would not disappoint them.

Their progress through the cloud had been marked by a steady increase in the glow of the gasses and dust. It was now to the point where what he could see out the window could be considered to resemble what the un-experienced would expect the entire cloud to be like on the inside.

And then, as if stepping through a gauzy curtain, the ACCIPITER broke free of the cloud. This was no mere pocket in the gasses cleared out by a random planet sized body exercising its gravity to sweep up dust. He should have expected it from the glow and the thickness of the dust and gasses in the cloud wall, but somehow Tony was still surprised when they broke out at the heliopause of a young, mid-sized star. Its accretion disk swirling like a miniature galaxy along the ecliptic. The surrounding cloud of gas glowing back in a dim, electric purple hue.

Free of the dust, the two ships could both increase speed significantly and they were soon approaching a series of large, fluffy, cometary bodies around which a number of harder returns were pinging back on the DRADIS.

These hard returns soon resolved into more detailed returns indicating a number of ships of varying sizes. Out the window he began to see them, growing larger as they approached. Passenger liners, freighters, a couple mining ships, a heavily damaged Agro ship with half it's domes opened to space, various industrial ships and a tylium tanker. Then they moved around one particularly large snowball to see the unexpected sight of the Fleet Repair Dock VULCAN.

Sister ship to the MONBADE, the VULCAN had been the victim of an early round of President Adar's cost cutting in the military budget. As a result, she had been sold to a private company who had set up shop moving around the Colonies performing service work on civilian ships, salvaging breakdowns on the major shipping routes and taking the occasional contract for maintenance on Fleet units.

VULCAN, however, had not come through unscathed. Much like the GOLDEN HIND, great rents and craters scored her hull and one of her lower clamshell doors was missing about two-thirds of its length. Docked along the upper-side gantry was an Odin class Battlestar, her back shattered and her flight pods missing.

Following traffic control directions from the crew of the repair ship, ACCIPITER slowed to a stop. The Scoutstar drifting the last few meters past the VULCAN only to see something totally unexpected.

Floating beside the mobile repair dock was the strangest ship Major Dane had ever seen. Like a kid had taken several of their old, broken toys and started gluing disparate pieces onto the most intact of them. To his right, his XO gave a low whistle.

“I'll be damned,” Wrex muttered. “Where the hell did they find an Imperial Leonis Potentate Class Battleship? Wait...”

As Katerin shook her head Tony looked over at her. “Wait what?”

“If I remember correctly, the only one of those not accounted for is the GRAND POTENTATE XEAL II. She went missing during the Leonian invasion of Tauron three hundred and ten years ago.”

There was silence as they both stared out the window at the oddly attractive hodgepodge vessel.

“I don't know what impresses me more,” Tony replied. “That they're getting an over three hundred year old ship operational, or that they've grafted the SET's flight pods onto it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we have our next homage/recommendation. Xeal II. I highly recommend their story 'Dreadnought's Revenge'.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review. Your thoughts and feedback help keep the muse inspired.


End file.
